IN UPDATE NEWS: The Venezuelan government has called on both the Basic Industries & Mines (Mibam) and Environment & Renewable Natural Resources (MinAmb) ministries to agree joint policies to allow the resumption of gold-mining activities in the southeast of Bolivar State.
While in May of this year, MinAmb Minister Yubiri Ortega de Carrizales had dropped a bombshell saying that further open-cast mining in the Imataca Rainforest Reserve would NOT be allowed, there has since been a series of political pressures brought to bear on the National Executive to clarify a situation where, if the MinAmb Minister was to have had the last word, the nation's valuable mining industries in minerals and precious stones (diamonds, emeralds) would have remained paralyzed or continued to be at the mercy of 'garimpieros' and/or small-scale miners who have traditionally polluted the fragile environment with mercury and other poisonous catalysts.
The Environment Minister had cited lack of planning and regulations on environmental hazards as overwhelming concerns, but in a statement published in the Venezuelan broadsheet El Nacional, Environment vice minister Merly Garcia has said that the government has agreed to controlled mining in a 4 million hectare (9.8 million acres = 15,932 square miles) drainage source (fluvial reach) of the Rio Cuyuni and east over the border into neighboring Guyana to join the giant Essequibo River.
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