Barbara Müller (Freiburg i.Br.)

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<b>
Goldgr&auml;bergeschichten - eine politisch-&ouml;kologische
        Betrachtung des Gold- und Diamantenabbaus in den W&auml;ldern S&uuml;dost-Venezuelas
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Pages 229 - 244


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The study focuses on an analysis of actors and socio-economic
        processes concerning gold and diamond mining activities in Bol&iacute;var
        State/Venezuela. Mining activities in these areas have various impacts
        on the natural environment, most prominent of all the clearing of patches
        of tropical forest, mercury pollution and river sedimentation. Concerning
        the actors involved, it needs to be considered that on one hand, mining
        is an important source of income and a survival strategy for impoverished
        people in Venezuela as the formal economy can not offer job opportunities
        to half of the population. On the other hand, also large-scale, industrial
        mining companies have shown growing interest in mineral exploitation in
        the region since the 1980s. This situation has caused severe conflicts
        between environmentalists and mining interests and between large scale
        mining companies and small scale miners who are fighting over access rights
        to mineral resources. Discussing the mining activities in the Bol&iacute;var
        State in abstract terms of international and national market demands and/or
        in ecological discourses, and locating them in an anonymous space and
        abstract terms, delinks mining from its larger historical and socio-economic
        context and obstructs the view on important decision-making processes
        concerning the Venezuelan mining sector. By using the Third World Political
        Ecology approach this study will show that effective conflict management
        needs to realize that the physical region overlaps with a social space
        involving a large diversity of regional and non-regional actors. A central
        aim of the study is to scrutinize regulation practices, legitimization
        and representation strategies of central actors (small-scale miners, mining
        companies, state representatives, NGOs...) in order to get a deeper -
        in the Venezuelan context embedded - understanding of forest destruction
        by mining activities.

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