FEBRUARY 2021 Characterization and Analysis of Some Key Socio-Environmental Variables in the Orinoco Mining Arc The Mining Arc is nothing more than a policy based on informalization at all levels, where there are no environmental regulations, no formal issuance of permits, no official inspection, no public services; the only thing that exists is an efficient system implemented by the irregular armed groups that guarantees that a high proportion of the gold extracted reaches the hands of the senior leaders of the structure implemented by the regime. SOSOrinoco Content PAG 1 Introduction PAG CHAPTER 1 5 Socioeconomic aspects: populated centers and indigenous communities PAG CHAPTER 2 18 The mining context in Bolívar PAG CHAPTER 3 35 River basins, ABRAE, and vegetation covers PAG CHAPTER 4 46 Violence PAG CHAPTER 5 51 Public health PAG CHAPTER 6 64 Mercury PAG 68 Conclusions PAG 70 Final considerations PAG 73 References PAG 83 Acknowledgments Characterization and Analysis of Some Key Socio-Environmental Variables in the Orinoco Mining Arc Introduction SOSOrinoco 1 Introduction Venezuela, one of the world’s twelve richest countries in biological diversity1, is also very rich in minerals, and is undoubtedly suffering the worst environmental crisis in the Western Hemisphere, with the largest proportional number of illegal mines and one of the highest deforestation rates in the Americas and the Amazon². This is partly explained by the progressive and now definitive collapse of an economy based on the extraction of oil, which now pressures the Maduro regime into accelerating unbridled exploitation of gold south of the Orinoco River. In 2016, the Maduro regime illegally decreed the so-called Orinoco Mining Arc (MA) for the purpose of promoting, deepening and facilitating all mining, especially gold, diamonds, coltan and “rare earths”, in a very extensive portion of the Guiana Shield, one of the planet’s most extraordinary regions from the biological and physical point of view, located south of the right bank of the Orinoco River, with an extension of about 112,000 km², which is equivalent to 12% of Venezuela’s continental territory, an area the size of Portugal3. This decree is a milestone in the unstoppable “gold bonanza” that has spread to areas that are beyond what was originally defined as the MA, including national parks, among them, Canaima National Park, a World Heritage Site recognized by UNESCO, and is where Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world, is located. Ironically, environmental organizations and international media, concerned with the policies of rulers such as Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, elsewhere in Amazonia, seem to have very little interest in the much more serious devastation being caused in the forests of the Guayana Amazonia Regions by the Nicolas Maduro regime, for which there is a “silencing” of the destruction and chaos that has been enthroned in the southern Venezuela, and about which little is said in international circles. Mining in southern Venezuela has practically become the only source of income for the dictatorial regime, and is being conducted with total contempt and disdain for social and environmental concerns, which exacerbates the health crisis, the increase in human rights violations and in all kinds of illegal activities, and the growing insecurity at the national as well as hemispheric levels. Based on its experience, SOSOrinoco has taken upon itself to delve deeper into analyzing the mining situation, specifically in the so-called Orinoco MiningArc. This has been addressed by mapping the mines’ physical footprints and tracking social situations. Upon analyzing all of this spatially, it has become possible to understand the impact of the regime’s mining policy, thus allowing us to propose guidelines for solutions that will eventually mitigate the damage and help rebuild Venezuela. Out of concern for the consequences of Venezuela’s institutional collapse resulting from the corrosive nature of the internal political debate and its process of searching for solutions in a manner devoid of facts and figures, our team made use of technology and data science, especially remote satellite sensing and Geographical Information Systems (GIS), in order to collect, organize, analyze and share the largest possible amount of georeferenced data (with precise spatial location), describing and detailing the different realities and challenges in the Mining Arc area. This is not easy if we consider that there has been a deliberate policy on the part of the regime to hide or not bother to collect information on key socio-environmental variables (incidence of diseases, the status of health infrastructure, deforestation, etc.). In this sense, organized civil society has been fulfilling an essential role, 1 https://www.biodiversitya-z.org/content/megadiverse-countries 2 https://www.amazoniasocioambiental.org/en/publication/amazonia-under-pressure-2020/ activo el 11 de enero de 2021 3 http://www.desarrollominero.gob.ve/zona-de-desarrollo-estrategico-nacional-arco-minero-del-orinoco/ activo el 11 de Enero de 2021 Characterization and Analysis of Some Key Socio-Environmental Variables in the Orinoco Mining Arc Introduction SOSOrinoco 2 that of gathering information from newspaper sources, testimonials, and even field data, which is scattered and difficult to access, especially considering that those who do this are subject to persecution or harassment by the regime’s security forces. In this sense, SOSOrinoco has made an effort to compile this information, while ensuring the confidentiality sources, in order to incorporate it into this analysis. A conclusion that we dare to advance in this introduction, derived from the analysis that will be shown here, is that environmental security is a key factor for a peaceful and democratic solution to the serious social, political, and economic crisis that the country is going through; not to consider it would be a very serious mistake that will have unsuspected consequences. Much is written in the Venezuelan media about this Mining Arc (Figure 1) but little is said about its statutory origin. The decree by which it was created is supposed to be an implementation of the Law for the Integral Regionalization for the Socio-productive Development of the Fatherland (Official Gazette 6151-E of 18 November 2014) which was enacted through the use of enabling legislation, whereby the Legislative Branch delegates to the Executive Branch the power to draft and enact laws. The legitimacy of the aforementioned law is made questionable by the very fact that it originated as “enabled” legislation, but going beyond that, we see that this instrument defines a concept called the “national strategic development zone.”The goal of this concept is “to promote or create a special regime for the development and protection of a specific sectorial activity pursuant to the highest interests of the Fatherland.” (Article 26). Characterization and Analysis of Some Key Socio-Environmental Variables in the Orinoco Mining Arc Introduction SOSOrinoco 3 This law is a normative instrument that seeks to centralize political power in the figure of the President of the Republic and ignores what is contemplated by other pre-existing organic laws of a higher rank (Salas-Bourgoin 2017)4, which renders it null and void. It is essential to remember and consider that the MA decree was declared illegal and unconstitutional on 14 June 2016 by the National Assembly, the only legitimate Public Power in Venezuela. A formal accord of the National Assembly disallowed and negated the constitutional authorization pertaining to Decree 2.248, by arguing that it violates articles 150 and 187-9 of the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, establishing that “contracts of national interest” require constitutional authorization by the National Assembly, and that it also violates articles referring to environmental rights (127, 128, 129, 130, 304, 327, and the preamble to the Constitution), with regard to the “ecological balance and environmental legal rights as humanity’s common and inalienable heritage.”5 Likewise, the National Assembly enacted the Organic Law on the Fresh Water and Biodiversity Mega-Reserve of the Southern Orinoco and Amazonia Regions6. This Organic Law was unanimously approved by this same National Assembly, which is the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela’s National Legislative Branch, on 27 November 2018, after approval during preliminary discussions on 2 October following an intensely wide debate in legislative committees, in plenary sessions, among political organizations, with NGO’s, at universities and over the news media and social networks7. This law, the aforementioned Decree 2.248 pertaining to the MA, was legally repealed in the “First Derogating Provision” of the legal text. Mining activity was already in existence in this region much before the MA was decreed. However, this activity has now intensified dramatically and has exceeded the limitations of the environmental and constitutional framework, thus becoming the cause of severe socio-environmental impacts on terrestrial and aquatic natural ecosystems, on biological diversity, as well as on the health and well-being of indigenous peoples and Criollos (non-indigenous people of Spanish linguistic and cultural heritage)that inhabit that space and its surroundings, affecting mine workers as well as the entire resident population.8 Added to this, we maintain that the Nicolás Maduro regime has for several years unleashed an institutional