Conservation

The threats facing Venezuela's wild places.

Reporting on the environmental pressures on Venezuelan ecosystems — from Arco Minero gold mining to Amazonian deforestation to Lake Maracaibo pollution.

Venezuela holds some of the most ecologically significant landscapes in South America: the Guayana Shield (one of Earth's oldest geological provinces), the Llanos savanna ecosystem (rivaling the Pantanal in wildlife density), the Venezuelan Amazon, the Caribbean coral reef systems, the Andean cloud forests. Most are under unprecedented pressure.

This section will host long-form environmental reporting on:

• Arco Minero del Orinoco — the 112,000 km² mining concession south of the Orinoco that overlaps significantly with Canaima National Park's buffer zones, indigenous territories, and ecologically critical forests. Mercury contamination, deforestation, displacement of Pemón communities.
• Venezuelan Amazon deforestation — illegal logging, garimpo gold mining, and frontier agriculture expanding into previously untouched zones, especially in Amazonas state.
• Lake Maracaibo pollution — chronic oil spills from aging PDVSA infrastructure, the Lemna (duckweed) algal bloom crisis, and the decline of the Catatumbo dolphin and other endemic species.
• Canaima National Park pressures — gold mining encroachment, helicopter tourism impact, indigenous community engagement.
• Caribbean reef decline — temperature stress, lionfish invasion, illegal fishing — though Los Roques remains a relative bright spot.
• Cloud forest fragmentation — Henri Pittier, Sierra Nevada de Mérida, El Ávila — the cloud forests above Caracas and the Andes are squeezed by urban expansion and climate shifts.

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