Imataca Forest Reserve (Photo © Rodolfo Castillo)
The Imataca Forest Reserve was created in 1961 with the purpose of protecting humid tropical forest for the specific use of wood production. Nevertheless, the new ordinance plan permits mining for gold in one portion of the territory. This is not the first time that this has happened. In 1997, the government approved a Management Plan for Imataca in which mining activity was permitted in a forest reserve for the first time in Venezuela. This caused environmental groups as well as various members of the National Congress (now the National Assembly) to protest. They presented demands to nullify the plan on grounds that it was illegal and unconstitutional according to the Supreme Court of Justice (now the Supreme Tribunal of Justice). At that time, the Supreme Court passed a precautionary measure paralyzing the allocation of mining concessions in the reserve before a final judgment could be sent down. With the changes in the government in 1999, it was promised that the 1997 plan would be revised and repealed.
MARN indicates that in order to elaborate the present Management Plan, they took into account environmental principles and rights of the indigenous people established in the Constitution of the Bolivar Republic of Venezuela, passed in 1999. In addition to that, they considered a technical study conducted by the Institute of Tropical Zoology at the Central University of Venezuela to be an adequate evaluation of the situation. The MARN likens the 1997 plan with the actual plan in a few respects:
– Carrying out an extensive process of public consultation for the discussion of the management plan that lasted three and a half months. Its final result was a guarantee for the participation of the citizenship and the indigenous communities.
– Increase zones designated for protection from 10.7% to 23.1%
– Increase from 51.3% to 62.5% the zones designated for forest use.
– Respect the ancestral indigenous territories, as well the community management of the forest by these communities.
– Decrease from 38% to 12% the areas designated for gold mining that are currently designated as forest-special use.
It is important to emphasize that this plan was completed using advanced methodologies for the identification and characterization of the ecosystems, and the employment of the skills of geographical information systems for the analysis of all the information. Still, it is necessary to carefully examine some of the results obtained as well as their implications:
– The protected areas principally located aside the Orinoco Delta, to the north of the reserve, suffer more from the exploitation of the forests because they are prone to periodic flooding. The small reservoirs of genetic diversity located in other area of the reserve function as islands of conservation, since the establishment of biological corridors was taken into consideration for the maintenance of genetic flow.
– Increase the area designated as forest use in a reservation where 80 % of the area is classified as ecosystems but they are not under control. This could be used as an opportunity to generate more zones of protection that allow for the possibility of major extensions added to the reserve. On the other hand, fear persists that the negative experiences that occurred in the Ticoporo Forest Reservation could repeat themselves in Imataca. There, the absence of a suitable management plan contributed to the disappearance of large sections of forests that then became used for agricultural activity.
– Although it is true that the area destined for the mining activity was reduced, this does not solve the problem raised by the 1997 Plan, since the presence of the gold mining activity is incompatible with that of a reservation designated for the use of wood and other not timber-yielding products obtained from the forest.
– An aspect criticized by the environmentalist groups is that their comments and concerns were not taken into consideration during the process of public consultation. The MARN pointed out that 53.5 % of their remarks presented during the process were rejected. The group\’s main observation pointed out that the forest activity and the mining activity are incompatible, however the Venezuelan legislature does not expressly prohibit the mining activity.
Apparently this new Management Plan does not solve the problem created in 1997, and many people are afraid that this is the beginning (or the continuation) of the destruction of the humid tropical forests located south of the Orinoco River, which constitute the largest remaining areas of virgin ecosystems of Venezuela.
If you wish to learn about the official stance from the Ministry of the Environment of Venezuela regarding these Management Plan, please contact ParksWatch Venezuela at: Bioparques.
ParksWatch-Venezuela, October 2004