Venezuela Unveils Mega-Project to Channel Rivers
Posted to the web: Wed Nov 27 10:52:53 EST 1996
(http://www.envirolink.org/environews/enews.html)
By Dominic Hamilton
CARACAS, Venezuela, Nov. 27'96 (ENS) - At a symposium held in the Tiuna
Fort in central Caracas this week, Airforce Brigadier General Oscard
Guedez revealed the government's intention to divert water from the River
Caura to the River Paragua in Bolivar State near the border with Brazil.
The symposium was called to discuss the pressing environmental, social and
political problems faced by Venezuela on its southern and western borders.
The Minister for Environment and Non-Renewable Resources, Doctor Roberto
Perez Lecuna, who was expected to speak, failed to turn up.
Also conspicuously absent from the Symposium was the Governor of Amazonas
State, Bernabe Gutierrez, who was to partake in a panel discussion. The
governor has made public his intention to lobby for the reversal of the
Presidential Decrees prohibiting mining and logging in the state.
The project involves the damming of the Caura in several stages,
inundating up to 1,000 square kilometers (km2) of valuable forest. A canal
30 km long will cut through another 62 km2, deforesting an estimated 5,300
hectares in the construction phase of the project alone, and so linking
the Caura to the Paragua.
The River Paragua is essential for the hydroelectric generation of the
Raul Leoni Dam, the second largest dam in the world, and has been under
increasing threat from informal sector mining and logging concessions over
the last decade, and particularly over the last two years.
General Guedez claimed that a feasibility study of the project had been
completed to divert the Caura towards the Paragua in order to ensure the
flow of water of the Raul Leoni Dam further downstream.
Although the plan has been known in some quarters for some time, the
public declaration of the project to channel water from one river to the
other is an important step.
The apparent need for the large-scale project stems from the government's
inability to control the gold rush on its southeastern border. It is
estimated that 10,000 km2 of forest in the High Caroni have been destroyed
as a result of mining, and over 1000 tons of mercury, employed in the
refining of gold-rich sediment, poured into the River Caroni over the last
decade. Despite various attempts to legislate against the destruction
inflicted on the Rivers Caroni and Paragua, which feed the dam, government
agencies and the military have not been capable of enforcing these.
Environmentalists have long argued that the plan clears the way for
increased mining and logging concessions in the Rivers Caroni and Paragua,
which up until now have been theoretically protected by Presidential
Decrees and environmental and mining legislation.
A spokesperson for the umbrella NGO 'Coalicion Por La Amazonia y
Orinoquia' which incorporates over 10 different organisations, said, "The
Caura-Paragua Project will not benefit the Yekuana or the Venezuelan
people. The project is far too large, in the old mould of mega-projects,
and the primary objective of the dams will be to sell electricity to
Brazil. Instead of protecting and conserving its resources, Venezuela is
destroying them. "
The River Caura flows north towards the Orinoco in the west of Bolivar
State and is the life-line of the Yekuana Indians. They have not been
consulted by government agencies. In a letter to the President written
when they first heard of the plan, they vowed "We will defend our land
with our lives."
At present there exists an anachronistic 'forest reserve' in the area
affected by the dam. It is feared the implementation of the Caura-Paragua
Project will allow logging concessions to be given out liberally for this
reserve, threatening the destruction of 782,000 hectares of ancient
forest. This area has up until now been saved from the worst effects of
the goldrush which has swept the southeast of Venezuela over the last
decade since it is found on the most inaccessible side of Canaima National
Park.
General Guedez also described the immense strain on the infrastructure of
southern Bolivar State due to the migration of up to ten thousand miners
to the area. This migration is a result of their expulsion from the
Kilometro 88 area to the north following the government's policy of
alloting concessions for mainly foreign mining companies such as Placer
Dome, Monarch Resources and Greenwich.
Funding for the Caura-Paragua Project is yet to be secured. If the present
situation in southern Bolivar State is not resolved urgently, it is more
than likely the Guri Dam will lose power, jeopardising 75% of Venezuela's
electricity, the equivalent of nine nuclear power stations.
The Environment News Service is exclusively
hosted by the EnviroLink Network. Copyright 1996 ENS, Inc.
Ron Mader, Publisher
El Planeta Platica: Eco Travels in Latin America
http://www.planeta.com/