(Press CIEV) the state Bolivar, one of the regions but biodiversas of Venezuela has been undergoing the attacks of the illegal mining for more of a century.
The deforestation, fragmentation of habitats, contamination of rivers, displacement of indigenous communities, lost infantile prostitution, drugs and of biodiversity are the balance of environmental liabilities that far from to improve the quality of life of the bolivarenses, maintain in silente vicious circle to them in which they do not leave the poverty in spite of extracting great wealth that finish in Colombia and Brazil, thanks to the precious mineral contraband, restored and consolidated in the region.
A panorama that, from pristine year 2006 has affected one of the river basin, inalterable of Bolivar, the Caura river, home of tens of indigenous towns and a surprising biodiversity.
The river basin of the Caura, characterized by tropical rainy low earth forest, has impressive levels of biological diversity -2,600 species of plants you will tilt, 168 of mammals, 475 of birds, 34 of amphibians, 53 of reptiles and 441 of fish identified to the date and stores more than 700 million tons of carbon, equivalent to the emissions of 162 million automobiles in a year.
A region that lodges indigenous groups - between which is the Ye'kwana, Sanema and Hoti- that depend exclusively on the local rivers to obtain potable water, foods and transport. When being in one of the isolated regions more of the Amazonia, these tribes still conserve their style of traditional life and a cultural value that, like its habitats this disappearing with the violent invasion of armed illegal miners.
Given the ephemeral mining paralyzation in the river basins of the rivers Caroní and Paragua - in which it is continued operating of clandestine form but in view of who wants to see, a mining height in the Caura river has taken place, experimenting the region an retort of the happened fever of gold of during century 19 in the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa.
The effective paralyzation of the illegal mining in the border Brazilian state of Roraima and little watched the opposite ones between him and Venezuela, also has contributed “to justify” the mobilization of illegal the auriferous workers to the Caura.
In spite of being prote'ge'e by five legal figures by the Venezuelan State, this reservorio natural has been invaded by irregular establishments, clandestine runways that are used frequently in the drug traffic, the contraband and the grant of foods and spare parts for the hydraulic motors that are used for the removal of all the vegetal layer of the zone.
Only the indigenous communities of the Caura, grouped in the organization “Kuyujaní” have maintained their voice of protest and demanded to the State the nondestruction of their habitats. However, the absence of effective actions, has entailed to the intervention of the river basin of constant way and in greater number of illegal miners.
“The natives live ancestrally in this part of the Venezuelan Amazonia and have obtained a balance between the nature and the development of their lives. Harmony that has been seen drastically altered with the mining incursion, with hydraulic motors that shoot to water spurts with guns of high power towards the shores of the rivers and the forests disassembling them to let in the open gravel deposits with potential contain gold and removing all the vegetal layer of the ground. The gold is generally extracted of this gravel using a canal that separates the heaviest sediments and used mercury to amalgamate the precious metal. Although most of mercury is removed to reuse itself or to burn itself, part of invariably finishes in the rivers”, notices Alexander Lanz, director of the CIEV.
It notices in addition that frequently the recovery of mercury, by means of the use of retorts, does not take to the end. Like result, the operators inhale mercury steam, mercury transported by the air is dried and it is deposited through many zones and liquid mercury arrives until the aquatic atmosphere. “Once there, he is metilado and ingested by the bentónicos organisms, that are as well devoured by fish predators, and thus continuous ascending in the nutritional chain”, it adds the ecologist.
Reason why the mercury bioaccumulation in the fish, that the greater protein source represents in the diet of the indigenous towns, affects its health seriously.
INCREASING VIOLENCE
To the margin of the environmental impact, the mining is causing displacements of indigenous communities in the Caura Stop, robbery of indigenous boats and violence for those who dare to denounce the incursion of illegal in their habitats.
“In recent months, hundreds of miners coming from the Brazilian states of For, Amapa and Mato Grasso, but also of Venezuela, Guyana and Colombia have been overflowed towards the Venezuelan forests, a situation that is repeated in the south of Guyana, the west of Surinam and in French Guyana (where the miners are implied in the murder of two ecoturísticos guides in the Natural Reserve Nouragues)”, he refers Lanz.
In this sense, the Ecological Research center of Venezuela makes a new call to the Venezuelan government to that it enforces the laws existing, which requires the protection of the wooded ecosystems and its biodiversity and that defends the rights of the indigenous groups at the moment threatened by the miners.
“Ninety and five percent of the territory of the river basin of the Caura are classified under different categories from the ABRAE (the system of protected areas), including a Forest Reserve and several zones of strict conservation”, affirmed Lanz.
“According to the Venezuelan law, the government is forced to protect these earth, involving to the indigenous communities and the local populations in the handling of the biodiversity and the viable use of the forest. The recent invasions of the gold miners in the river basin of the Caura River are a direct violation of the Venezuelan law”, affirmed.