This report, prepared by several organizations from six Amazonian countries (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela), addresses the impacts of illegal gold mining in the Amazon, focusing on its devastating effects on human rights and biodiversity. Illegal mining in the Amazon is controlled in many cases by criminal networks facilitated by corruption and lack […]

This is the 10th edition of the annual World Heritage Watch (WHW) Report since we started our work in 2014. Our global network has since grown to more than 200 civil society actors in more than 60 countries. The World Heritage Watch Reports have become more voluminous over the years, reaching 55 contributions this year. […]

The purpose of this study is to carry out a quantitative assessment of the eastern axis of state of Bolívar, aimed at proposing strategies and measures for its conservation and sustainable use in the context of violence, human rights and environmental abuses, and international controversy present in that Venezuelan region. The results of the valuation […]

At first glance, the annual World Heritage Watch (WHW) Reports may seem like chapters of a serialized novel. But they are not: They always provide fresh, challenging alerts. They urge the world community, and UNESCO in particular, to remain attentive, to act in good time, and to tirelessly insist on the implementation of earlier commitments. […]

Report by USAID “Venezuela FAA 118/119 Tropical Forests & Biodiversity Analysis” AUTHORS This work was conducted by an Environmental Incentives led team with support from a team of Venezuelan consultants and in close collaboration with the USAID Venezuela Operating Unit. The Environmental Incentives team was led by Tamia Souto, Juan Carlos Martínez-Sánchez and Nate Graham. […]

World Heritage Watch 2022 report by SOSOrinoco on Canaima National Park (Page 87) Update on the Situation of Gold Mining in Canaima National Park, Venezuela

In this update of the report published in August 2020, recent data is presented on the human rights situation of the indigenous peoples that inhabit the RBAOC, with emphasis on the health and health care issues, as well as the continued and increasing invasion of illegal miners “garimpeiros” from Brazil. In addition, the recent events […]

This report presents the results of research to determine the extent and location of the footprints resulting from gold mining operations in the Essequibo Territory, an area located within Guyana’s de facto boundaries, but claimed by Venezuela and subject to the Geneva Agreement of 1966, signed by the United Kingdom, Venezuela and what was still […]

This research seeks to unravel the current state of affairs regarding cyanidation processes in the state of Bolívar, with the objective of estimating its true scope within the framework of the Mining Arc policy and its real contribution to the country’s current gold production. Cyanidation techniques are much more efficient, but require heavy industrial processes. […]

Mining in southern Venezuela, represented in the Orinoco Mining Arc, has become an activity imbued within a large organized criminal network that reaches all levels of political and military power. One of the key irregular actors within this complex plot consists of the Organized Armed Groups (OAGs). This report presents the results of an investigation […]

In this report we present the first systematic study on changes in vegetation and land use cover within the so-called Orinoco Mining Arc (MA), and our comments on the findings.

The year 2020 marked the 58th anniversary of the founding of Canaima National Park, a World Heritage Site (CNP-WHS), celebrated while the park lay under siege by the illegal mining operations inside its boundaries as well as in adjacent areas.

The 2016 Mining Arc decree marked a milestone in the mining history of Venezuela. This report shows the status of some important socio-environmental variables within the Mining Arc space, and analyzes their link with mining through a preliminary spatial analysis. In a “geographic information system” (GIS), we integrate documentary, statistical, cartographic, thematic data and satellite […]

World Heritage Watch – page 69: Report on Canaima World Heritage Site by SOSOrinoco A gold rush is having a negative impact on Canaima National Park (CNP), a World Heritage Site. Various studies have demonstrated the destruction of at least 521 hectares of its ecosystems It becomes necessary for UNESCO to include CNP on the […]

Downstream from Icabarú, one can see more deforested mining sites along both banks of the Icabarú, and also another settlement with an unpaved landing strip. At the confluence of the Icabarú and Caroní rivers there is a small settlement with a dirt runway for light aircraft, and one can also see mining sites located inside, as well as outside of Canaima National Park. Miners die on a regular basis as a result of being buried alive as flimsy cliffs collapse from the action of pressurized water jets ejected by the monitors used in the hydraulic mining method

Far from being a legal activity that would bring in revenue to the National Treasury, the coltan mining operations are nothing more than an activity that is totally immersed in corruption and has as its purpose the enrichment of individuals: military officers, politicians, financial backers and technocrats, most of whom are partial to the regime, and members of the Colombian guerrilla forces, who use this as a way to finance the operations of their criminal organization. At the cost of causing highly deleterious impacts on society, this activity has no purpose other than to fill the pockets of these players and further promote their other illegal operations.

In the initial SOS Orinoco report, published in July of 2018, describing mining activity inside Canaima National Park (CNP), a World Heritage Site (WHS) recognized by UNESCO, the authors characterized and explained this phenomenon as being a consequence of the current Venezuelan government’s political strategy of promoting mining activity amidst an economic, social and political collapse that the regime itself has created and promoted. This document is an update of that first report, where the authors endeavored to describe what has happened in CNP and what has been the institutional response from UNESCO, IUCN and the Venezuelan government itself.

The Alto Orinoco – Casiquiare Biosphere Reserve (RBAOC) comprises one of the geographical areas of greatest cultural diversity in the entire Amazon; Indigenous communities of 17 different ethnic groups live there. Each of these peoples is the bearer of a unique cultural heritage, and as a whole they give an extraordinary universe of linguistic diversity, worldviews, mythologies, history, art and ancestral knowledge, which are a true, unique and irreplaceable contribution to Humanity through the conservation of socio-diversity and biodiversity.

Two thousand hectares of Yapacana National Park’s surface is being subjected to gold mining activity, a case of extreme ecocide. The impact on its ecosystems manifests itself not only on the surface area that has been directly destroyed but also as the radial and expansive effects caused by the more than 2,000 miners currently occupying the national park. This makes Yapacana the national park that, without a doubt, has suffered the highest level of destruction.

In recent years there has been an increase in information pertaining to a boom in gold mining activity within Canaima National Park (CNP), a World Heritage Site (WHS). Furthermore, this situation falls within the context of a strategic policy of the current Venezuelan government that promotes mining activities over vast geographic areas, and encompasses all mining categories.