With the enthusiastic complicity of the State and the
participation of Canadian, US, British and S African
transnational mining companies, Venezuela is seeing
the setting up of a project promoting the immediate
exploitation of a rich gold reserve which, according
to its promoters and beneficiaries, will turn out to be
the discovery of the famous El Dorado - sought after
so remorselessly in the 16th century by Europeans in
these lands. We are talking of between 8 and 12
thousand tons of probable reserves which would
represent 10% of world stock with a current market
value of 140 thousand million dollars. And if that
were not all we are supposedly speaking of a high
quality mineral with extraction of 8, 12 or even 16
grams of gold for every ton of processed material,
which compares very favourably with the production
from S African seams which give an average of 4
grams per ton. So it is not strange that people have
noticed a certain 'gold fever' which has been fed with
the notion that the richness will prove a solution to
the grave economic difficulties that the country
experienced during the 1980s.
Before 1991 gold extraction on a wide scale was
under the jurisdiction of the State which showed
little interest since oil was more profitable and it
maintained only modest production from the old
seams of El Callao which never went over 12 tons
p.a. and allowed for small scale mining by crafts
people to extract a small tonnage of alluvium gold.
But since then, inspired by the neo-liberal economic
programme a process was set up to give out big
contracts for gold exploitation which, up until 1994
had contracted out 436 sites over a surface of
1,283,882 hectares, nearly 12,839 Kms2 with a
projected figure of 30,000 km2 (an area nearly the
size of Belgium or Catalunya and slightly bigger than
the Venezuelan Andean region). Official and private
voices speak of production figures for the year 2000
of between 40 and 60 tons, turning the country into
one of the major world producers and giving jobs to
some 120,000 people and a national revenue of 250
million dollars p.a. Activity at the first major mine
will begin in 1996 (Las Cristinas in the state of
Bolivar and run by the Canadian company Placer
Dome) and will yield 300,000 ounces of gold p.a.
i.e. 9,331 tons.
But this promised bonanza poses an enormous
ecological problem: gold mining is only possible to
the South of the Orinoco river in the vast region of
Guayana, which, like the rest of the Amazon river
basin has unique biodiversity characteristics whose
preservation is vital and where human intervention
must be measured against the highest standards in
order not to upset the balance of this the greatest
example of natural complexity in the world and
which makes Venezuela the fourth country in the
world with regard to bio diversity. Guayana is made
up of 44% of Venezuelan territory but with only
5.5% of its population which is mainly concentrated
in a small area near Orinocco, the rest of the area
having remained relatively free from the predatory
intervention of the State and capitalism. The mining
potential of Guayana (gold, diamonds, bauxite, iron,
radioactive materials, titanium etc.) has been known
about and exploited for some time but the areas
where these activities have taken place, the methods
used to pursue them and their impact on the
ecosystem has scarcely affected this vast area
(although the environmental disasters caused by
small mines, state technocrats and landowners has
already caused some damage in certain areas).
Now with the new dreams of gold the danger has
grown and what we are currently seeing confirms
this fear. We are now seeing the same process of
handing out contracts which, as one might expect of
the Venezuelan State has been accompanied by all
sorts of vice and corruption whose greatest
perpetrators have been the successive presidents of
the Venezuelan Corporation of Guayana and the
Energy ministers (especially the current Erwin
Arrieta, also general secretary of OPEC) accused of
being, either directly or through front men, the main
receivers of mining permits which they then sell on
to the TNCs in exchange for handsome commissions.
These corrupt handouts even include areas which
have been specifically excluded by legislation which
set up the Canaima National Park (where one can
see those extraordinary geographic formations
known as 'tepui' and the highest waterfall in the
world the Cherun Meru or Salto Angel) where 18
contracts have been signed giving away about 5,000
hectares in the North of the Park. Other natural
sanctuaries have been affected such as the Southern
Protected Zone of the State of Bolivar, from whence
spring the biggest rivers in the country and the Forest
Reserve of Imateca which suffers 40% of the mining
activities in the region despite the promises of the
bureaucracy which claims to protect it. With regard
to the Amazon State mining activity is proceeding
apace in order to render obsolete any attempt to put
a brake on its activities which in reality is becoming
more and more a *fait accompli*