Ecobreves – VENEZUELA: Miners Move Into Canaima National Park

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

CARACAS, Nov 21 2011 (IPS) - Indigenous communities report that illegal gold mining has now penetrated into Canaima National Park, which covers 30,000 square kilometers in southeastern Venezuela. "Little by little the miners have moved closer to the park and this year they began to come in with their equipment, cutting down trees and moving land. This causes damage to the rivers and scares the tourists," Gilberto Calcaño, leader of a Pemon indigenous community that operates modest camps for visitors, told Tierramérica.

Another Pemon community activist, Regina González, maintained that the miners are supplied with fuel for their equipment with the consent of the military personnel responsible for patrolling the area, while the staff of the governmental National Parks Institute lack the means to detect and prevent the incursions.

Bordering on Brazil and Guyana, the park’s spectacular natural scenery, particularly its high waterfalls and tepuis (mountains with vertical walls and flat tops) inspired UNESCO to declare it a World Heritage Site in 1994.