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• 1 2021-03-07T19:51:09-08:00 Indigenous Peoples in the Guiana Shield & Control over Environmental Resources 19 Mining in Venezuela's Golden Mining Arc plain 2021-03-22T08:13:22-07:00

  Evolving international legal definitions of environmental justice focus on indigenous peoples in light of colonial, post-colonial, and nationalist development that has occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean, and which has depended on the exploitation of natural and labor resources for economic growth. For example, in 2012 the Permanent Secretariat of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System noted the importance of social inclusion that prioritizes rural areas, indigenous people, and women; as such, they observed the need to ensure justice and social inclusion through public policies and state intervention (MacLennan and Perch 2012, 290). 
  
  
  
  Indigenous peoples living within the Guiana shield face tremendous challenges due to both legal and illegal logging and mining activities. In Venezuela alone the Orinoco Mining Arc (Arco Minero) in Bolivar state decreed by the Nicolás Maduro regime in 2016 ordered that legal mining activity could take place in legally-protected environmental and indigenous territories. There, legal and illegal miners battle violence and malaria on a daily basis in towns like the aptly named “El Dorado.” The town, on the banks of the Cuyuni river is the site of a prison notorious for overcrowding where inmates are forced to drink untreated water from the Cuyní river, polluted by mercury from gold mining activity.
  
  
  
  Opposition politicians continue to be vocal about the effects of the Arco Minero plan on indigenous peoples and the environment. In Bolivar state, primarily the Pemón group continues to be affected:
  
  
  Américo de Grazia, Presidential Commissioner for the Arco Minero and congressman from Bolivar State for the National Assembly (the contested opposition government led by Juan Guaidó), has discussed how gold mining activities have been linked to the presence of guerrilla groups such as Colombia's National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional, or ELN). As he states: " the tourist campgrounds that existed on Guri lake are now mining camps and the official seat of the ELN army in Sucre, Maripa, in Bolivar state."
  
  
  On the rampant environmental destruction he said: "It is not enough to talk about a [legal] decree, it is necessary to change the culture." He lauded the National Assembly's Ley de la Mega Reserva to protect biodiversity around the Orinoco and all of the drainage basins in the Venezuelan Amazon (which is part of the larger Guiana shield). As such, this law aims to reverse mining and promotes clean energy industries. 
  
  In Amazonas state in Venezuela, the situation continues to be drastic, National Assembly congresswoman(Amazonas- Un Nuevo Tiempo Party), Mauligmer Baloa, spoke on Plan País Presente en Vivo  (from the National Assembly led by Juan Guaidó) about the many ways through which indigenous peoples in her state were suffering under the Venezuelan government’s Arco Minero plan. Many young indigenous people have been forced to migrate and many indigenous elders have been left alone. She reiterated that “We [indigenous peoples] are the true guardians of the frontiers of the jungle and Mother Earth (cuidadores de la frontera de la selva y de la tierra.. de la madre tierra (0:58).”