MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Venezuelan NGOs denounce environmental damages caused by illegal mining

The damage to the ecosystem and to the populations of these areas is evident, the NGOs said

Environmentalist organizations have called on the Venezuelan government to take action in view of the damage caused by illegal mining in an area near the Colombian border.

The Education, Production and Environment Project (EPA) initiative has stated earlier this week that in Táchira activities of “exploitation, extortion, micro-trafficking, drug trafficking and mineral smuggling” were carried out.

“Just as illegal mining, extraction of minerals and natural resources occurs in the Orinoco Mining Arc, which has already been denounced repeatedly, it also occurs in the Táchira state, exactly in the Lobatera municipality,” EPA coordinator Elías Cáceres said in a press release by the NGO Fundaredes.

The EPA project is made up of Fundaredes and other NGOs. They all maintain that it is an “unconscious extraction that is being done on these lands and that it is causing damage to our ecology [and] damage to our environment.”

Cáceres highlighted that areas of the border state such as Minas del Carbón, El Rodeo, La Parada, Montaña, Molino, Casadero and Platanales are among those most affected by illegal mining.

He has thus called on the Venezuelan State to give the required importance to these complaints that, he assured, have been made public since 2019. ”It is necessary to take this serious situation into account, since the damage being done to the ecosystem and to the populations of these areas is evident,“ said the EPA coordinator.

Earlier this month, Fundaredes denounced ”the serious environmental impact and the damage“ in the Amazonian state of Bolívar, located in the south of the country, due to the exploitation of gold carried out by companies authorized by the Nicolás Maduro regime.

“Without any control, the serious environmental impact continues and the destruction of the vegetal lung in the state of Bolívar by the transnational companies authorized by the national government for the exploitation of gold, coupled with the actions of the criminal groups” in the region, the organization said.