Environmentalists Defend a Modern-Day Eden

Not long ago, environmentalists were as rare in Venezuela as the Orinocan crocodile. Today, they’re a vibrant movement defending a modern-day Eden from chain saws, bulldozers and the pollution of rapid economic development.

Blossoming since the 1970s into half a dozen groups that have full-time staffs and scores of other volunteer organizations, environmentalists are using their growing muscle with some success.

Just this year, they helped shoot down a government proposal to license jaguar hunting with the purported aim of raising funds to protect that endangered species.

Local chapters of the Audubon Society and other groups brought national attention to the still-unexplained destruction of coral reefs near Caribbean islands in pristine Morrocoy National Park, and to oil spills that killed thousands of fish near Lake Maracaibo, the heart of Venezuela’s oil industry.

Now they’re engaged in their biggest fight yet: the recent legalization of gold mining in Imataca reserve, a Holland-sized chunk of Amazon rain forest near the Kilometer 88 region.

In the heart of Bolivar state’s mining field, near Brazil, the gold-rich Kilometer 88 region is so named because of its distance from a famed mining site, El Dorado.

Activists filed a Supreme Court lawsuit to block mining in Imataca and won support from native Indian groups, key congressmen and the influential Roman Catholic bishops conference.

The clout of the environmental groups “is what’s keeping the Imataca plan on the front pages of newspapers,” said Diego Diaz, executive director of the Nature Defense Foundation, one of Venezuela’s largest and oldest environmental organizations.

The stakes for this South American nation of 22 million people are considerable. Lying beneath its surface are the largest proven oil reserves outside the Middle East, along with gold and diamond deposits thought to be among Latin America’s richest lodes and worth billions of dollars.

There also are extensive tracts of coal, timber, bauxite for aluminum, and other major resources, including hydroelectric power from giant dams on the Caroni River, an offshoot of the mighty Orinoco.

For all that, four of every five Venezuelans live in poverty, by official estimate. The government says it can help create jobs and strengthen the economy by developing natural resources: It plans to double oil production during the next decade.

Americo Martin, a government consultant, said those who try to block development are in effect promoting poverty and starvation. Environmentalists “prefer that entire families die rather than have a single tree fall,” he said.

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Environmentalists stress they’re not opposed to economic development. They just want it done without destroying the habitats of harpy eagles, freshwater dolphins, neon-colored butterflies and saber-toothed payara fish so ferocious they eat piranha for breakfast.

They’re dubious of government pledges to enforce regulations, and claim many mining companies that are winning concessions have poor environmental track records.

“The potential destruction here is much larger than in other parts of the world” because of Venezuela’s ecological richness, said Wouter Veening of the Switzerland-based World Conservation Union, which compiles the standard list of endangered species.

Venezuela is home to snow-capped Andean mountains, the world’s highest waterfall, one of the Caribbean’s longest coastlines, one of the continent’s largest freshwater lakes, and two of the world’s six largest national parks.

Henri Pittier National Park alone has 600 species of bird. That’s nearly as many as the entire area between Alaska and Mexico’s northern border, even though the park is one-third the size of Rhode Island.

“There is nothing closer to earthly paradise than what we are flying over,” Cesar Perez Vivas, head of Congress’ environmental committee, marveled during a trip over Imataca’s green sea of trees, some of which have trunks thicker than a man is tall.

Such treasures are increasingly threatened. Some species found in Venezuela are on the World Conservation Union’s endangered list, including the Orinocan crocodile, spectacled bear, military macaw, giant anteater and hawksbill turtle.

Travel agents who want to turn the country into an eco-tourism destination say the business could be ruined before it even takes off.

The government of President Rafael Caldera has been criticized as being lax on ecological protection. For instance, it plans to run a nearly 300-mile high-voltage power line through the rain forests of Canaima National Park.

The park is among about 100 U.N.-designated World Heritage Sites. Its mysterious flat-topped mountains called “tepuis” inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s adventure novel “The Lost World.”

Canadian mining firm Placer Dome and the Venezuelan government want to carve an open pit nearly a mile square and one-fifth of a mile deep in Kilometer 88 near Canaima and Imataca to extract what is thought to be the biggest gold deposit in Latin America.

Government officials contend the Imataca plan actually would lessen ecological damage because major mining companies would bring in sophisticated technology. Illegal miners who knock down trees with high-pressure water hoses, and dump mercury and cyanide into rivers, also would be better regulated, they say.

Environmentalists are unconvinced. One of the Caldera administration’s harshest critics is former President Carlos Andres Perez, who in 1977 created Latin America’s first Environmental Ministry and established 23 of the nation’s 43 national parks.

“Environmental protection policies ceased to exist with the current government,” Perez said.