Venezuela enjoys abundant natural resources, but there is no policy to ensure their conservation.
Although Venezuela is privileged to be among the 17 most megadiverse countries in the world and occupies ninth place with the largest freshwater reserves on the planet, its main rivers have been highly disturbed for decades by deforestation, sewage effluents, industrial waste and agrochemicals. In addition to oil spills, mining, overfishing and the effects of climate change.
According to the 2007 Water Law, the country has hundreds of rivers and streams, but 80 are considered major rivers located in 16 regions. This represents a flow of more than 35,000 cubic metres per second (m3/s). The most important is the Orinoco River, which carries 95 per cent of these waters. The Orinoco basin is the largest in South America and the third largest in the world, covering an area of 1,080,000 km2, 71% of which is in Venezuela and 29% in Colombia.
Alongside it, basins such as Lake Maracaibo, the Amazon, Esequibo, the slopes of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, and important rivers such as the Turbio, the Tocuyo River and the Apure plains are considered fragile ecosystems, fundamental for life, but over the years their waters have gradually become extinct, as have their riparian forests, fauna and vegetation, following the voracious intervention of man.
Francisco Cañizales, an environmentalist, affirms that instead of ensuring the increase of vegetation, as established in international treaties signed by Venezuela such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Climate Change Convention, and the Agreement to Combat Desertification and Drought, the State has neglected the conservation of rivers and allowed the occupation of entire hectares of national parks, where the main watersheds of the nation are located.
Current x-ray of Venezuela’s rivers
The conclusions reached by Professor Douglas Rodríguez Olarte, head of the Chair of Ecology in the Department of Biological Sciences at UCLA, after editing the book ‘Rivers at Risk in Venezuela’, Volume One, 2017, after evaluating the conditions of the Turbio River, on whose banks the city of Barquisimeto was founded, is that eight years ago the degradation of all its channels was notorious, with less intensity in protected areas.
‘There is loss of riparian forests and erosion of riverbank areas, hydrogeomorphological alteration of the riverbeds, siltation by sediment and the induced intermittency of the current, extreme water pollution in the middle and lower basin, as well as fragmentation of habitats and loss of the richness of aquatic insects and fish,’ he said.
The last flood in the Turbio was in April 1999. This river starts in the Andean mountain range, south of Sanare, and its headwaters are in the Yacambú National Park. ‘This protected area has been affected by logging and burning for the production of coffee in full sunlight, or by the exploitation of its upper floors for the cultivation of vegetables and livestock. For years there have been complaints from environmentalists that have been lodged with the Public Prosecutor’s Office, but there has been no response,’ said Francisco Cañizales.
Nicolás Álvarado, a marine biologist, remembers that in 1966, he and his family used to swim in the Turbio River. Today, he is affected by how deteriorated it is, especially the Bosque Macuto. He said that his father, Don Juan Bautista Alvarado, an influential businessman, together with the president of the Municipal Council of Iribarren, Raúl Azparren, tried in 1970 to reforest the entire Macuto Forest as far as the Hacienda Santa Bárbara in Titicare, and to plant abundant trees. But with the change of government, these plans were never carried out. He alleges that with the construction of the Avenida Hermano Nectario María, better known as the Ribereña, an ‘ecocide’ was committed by felling important trees, but nobody paid for these ecological crimes.
Loss of biodiversity
The research carried out by Professor Douglas Rodríguez Olarte, PhD in conservation biology, highlights that from 2003 to 2015, the vegetation in the Bosque Macuto sector, an important plant lung of the Turbio River, lost 15 hectares of vegetation, chaguaramales or maporales palms, which are now scarce and small in size.
Nicolás Álvarado, a marine biologist, indicated that the impact caused by the exploitation of the Orinoco Mining Arc has been lethal for Venezuelan Guyana, the richest region in terms of species, considered the area with the most endemic fauna and flora in the country and in South America. ‘Of 9,411 species identified, 2,136 (22.7 per cent) are endemic to Venezuelan Guayana,’ says the report “Biodiversity and Human Rights Crisis Caused by Illegal Mining in Venezuela” by the NGO SOS Orinoco, October 2024.
‘Mining destroys the topsoil, the topography of the soil. These forests are difficult to recover, and mercury contamination also has a high impact on rivers, especially in the area of the Guri dam, which supplies the country with electricity,’ Alvarado said.
On 16 November 2024, SOS Orinoco estimated that there were 66,000 hectares affected by illegal mining in the Venezuelan Amazon. In 2017, the book Ríos en Riesgo de Venezuela (Rivers at Risk in Venezuela) points out that what has most affected the Orinoco River for decades has been the burning of its savannahs, the increased use of agrochemicals and the replacement of native vegetation with crops such as cotton, vegetables and fruit on islands and banks of the lower Orinoco, altering the cycle of carbon and other nutrients. For years it has been affected by oil exploitation and, since 2013, more intensely by mining, an extractivist practice.
Lake Maracaibo hit by pollution
Oil spills in Lake Maracaibo are wiping out wildlife and vegetation. It is considered the 19th largest lake in the world, with a surface area of 12,800 km2 and a volume of 280 billion m3.
Under its waters, 20,000 kilometres of old and corroded pipelines continually spew crude oil, causing large stains on its shores.
‘Despite the fact that Venezuelans have treated Lake Maracaibo badly, due to oil spills and the lack of control of plastic pollution, its basin is still functional and produces enough water. Now its salinity is higher and sometimes lemna has appeared, which lowers its oxygen and causes fish to die. But in recent years we have seen how some species, despite being stained with oil, have survived, such as the blue crab,’ he argued.
‘Despite the damage, the country is a land of grace.
Nicolás Alvarado, national coordinator of the Sustainable Development Plan for the EcoRegion Deltana and the Atlantic coast, explained that Venezuela’s rivers, despite being disturbed by human intervention and the effects of climate change, are still sustainable for fishing productivity. In fact, after oil exports, the sale of shrimp and blue crab in international markets is what generates the most foreign currency for the country, despite the fact that waters such as those of Lake Maracaibo are permanently affected by oil spills.
‘We have been lucky from the point of view of fishing productivity. In America we are very competitive and we have been so because our geographical conditions have favoured us and also the hand of God has touched us. For example, in the Orinoco River towards the northern part of the state of Sucre, that is an area of sardine productivity, one of the basic and most strategic foods for the nation from the point of view of food security and ecology. Countries like Brazil, due to overfishing, are running out of sardines and we have plenty of them. In Delta Amacuro we also extract crab, which is marketed in Trinidad and Tobago and Holland. We are a land of grace,’ he exclaimed.
