The rising water level in Lake Valencia in northern Venezuela poses a threat to tens of thousands of families in the surrounding area due to the risks of water damage, road washouts, burst water pipes and spilled sewage. This situation is a consequence of sedimentation caused by years of deforestation and poorly managed human settlement in the lake’s watershed area, which covers 3,150 square kilometers, ecologist Lenin Cardozo told Tierramérica.

"We are building a united front to demand that the government speed up solutions other than the transfer of the lake’s water to the Pao-Cachinche reservoir," Manuel Díaz, a member of the Fundación Vida Verde (Green Life Foundation), told Tierramérica.

This reservoir, filled with industrial waste discharged into the lake, supplies water to around three million people in the region.

The Ministry of the Environment is studying the feasibility of channeling water from the lake to the nearby Caribbean Sea.