Venezuela’s Maduro orders crackdown on illegal mining after DiCaprio criticism

Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro says the army must do a better job stopping environmental destruction caused by unregulated mining. 

Maduro, leader of the ostracized South American country since 2013, made the comments in a national year-end TV address. It was just days after Titanic actor Leonardo DiCaprio criticized the regime for allowing state-sanctioned gold mining to accelerate the loss of pristine rainforest by 170% a year. DiCaprio shared a social media post citing a New Scientist article.

The president asked the Operational Strategic Commander of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces to ramp up efforts against illegal gold mining in the southeastern Amazonas and Bolívar states.

Bolívar shows the largest loss of rainforest, according to reports by non-governmental organization Clima21 and a fact-finding mission set up by the United Nations. 

Bolívar, bordering Brazil and Guiana, hosts most of the country’s gold deposits and is part of the Orinoco Mining Arc, a National Development Strategic Zone created by presidential decree in 2016.

The Mining Arc is a 111,843-sq.-km concession area for mining gold, diamond, iron ore, copper, bauxite, and coltan, among other resources. It’s larger than Portugal and makes up 12% of Venezuela.

A big chunk of the destruction in Bolívar and other states in the arc, according to the UN mission, lies within gold mining concessions granted by the Maduro administration to the National Liberation Army (ELN), a Colombian guerrilla group.

The guerrillas divided the region into several chunks ruled by so-called unions who conducted illegal logging, trafficked in drugs, arms, fuel, medicine and food, engaged in slavery and attacked Indigenous communities.  

“Venezuelan military units allow and sometimes facilitate ELN activities to drive out rival criminal armed groups,” the UN says in a report. “Additionally, the ELN relies on a network of smugglers and mules who pay bribes to cross GNB (Venezuelan army) lines and armed group checkpoints to bring gold to the Colombian border.”

Alluvial semi-mechanical mining is the most common south of the Orinoco river and other areas of the Guayana region. It causes heavy deforestation, soil disturbance, degradation of riverbeds and banks, and water and land pollution by hazardous waste, notably mercury, which is massively used despite being banned in the country, the UN says. 

Clima21 says illegal mining, paired with some agricultural activities and both legal and illegal logging, has led to undetermined yet high levels of pollution and to the loss of 11,000 sq. km of native vegetation in the Venezuelan Amazon between 1985 and 2020.

“Because of this, Venezuela’s Guayana region is considered a hotspot when it comes to global deforestation,” the NGO said.