Venezuela

Using the argument of “sustainable development”, governments in the Amazon region continue providing incentives for extractivism. In the face of this, indigenous leader Alessandra Munduruku vents her thoughts: “What we need is the demarcation of indigenous territories. Enough talk of bioeconomy, of sustainability, when there is violence in the here and now.”

The Amazon region is one of the final frontiers of resistance to capital expansion. This is epitomized by the struggles of social activists such as Chico Mendes, as well as by the presence of most of the earth’s remaining indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation. However, different forms of ‘green’ extractivism are currently and increasingly advancing on this territory.

In recent years, one of the biggest threats to the Venezuelan Amazon and to the Indigenous Peoples who inhabit it has been mining, especially gold mining.

The production of audio-visual tools, videos and podcasts in the Amazon, where Indigenous Peoples talk about their realities and resistance struggles, is increasing.

The crisis in Venezuela from 2013 to 2021 has caused the collapse of a nation that was built around oil over the last 100 years. This has created a situation characterized by the emergence of mining-dominated predatory extractivism.

The study, “Amazonía en la encrucijada” (“The Amazon at the Crossroads”), by the Amazon Geo-Referenced Socio-Environmental Information Network (RAISG, by its Portuguese acronym) presents an overview of the pressure caused by roads in Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Perú and Venezuela. According to the report, of the 136,000 kilometers of roads mapped in the region, at least 26,000 are in protected natural areas and indigenous territories. For example, in the Brazilian Amazon, the report states that most deforestation occurs in the vicinity of roads.

Fires in the Amazon are occurring more frequently and with greater intensity. But who is really burning the forests?

Venezuela is well known for being one of the main oil exporters in the world, and now also because of the major crisis it is currently facing, which is affecting all areas of social life in the country. Despite extensive international news coverage about what is happening in Venezuela, dominant versions of the story are notably biased, manipulated and incomplete; and they rarely highlight the root causes of the situation (1).

How to make the sustainability of life the center of debate

"They consider us the periphery of the periphery"