The Orinoco Mining Arc: a historical perspective

Abstract

The decree of Mining Arc, endorsed in 2016, proposes the exploitation of minerals in an approximate area of 112,000 km² that has generated a very intense controversy which has been very publicized by the media. However, there have been artisanal gold mining for several hundred years, commercial mining for 175 years, and in recent times, forms of industrial mining that have satisfied Venezuelan environmental standards. In the last 20 years, mining has had a very erratic policy; in 2004, a Piar Mission was implemented, aligned with a socialist vision of land use, which promoted the most destructive form of mining—hydraulic monitors and amalgam with mercury. That generated a situation of anarchy that led to the emergence of criminal armed groups that control most of the mines today. At present, there are more than 200,000 people who depend on mining directly or indirectly; therefore, an absolute ban on mining is not viable. The decree of Mining Arc was integrated with the destruction of the environmental control institutionality and the creation of a military mining company, so it must be rejected. All this is an example of how gold mining can go wrong, while in other countries these projects can be successful. Venezuela requires foreign exchange to recover the damaged production infrastructure; a rational way of mining may contribute to this recovery, but that requires restoring to the Ministry of the Environment, formulating and executing a mining policy with a long-term vision according to the economic, social, and environmental realities of the nation.