Venezuela: an ecologically sustainable revolution?

• Author: Kenny, Zoe

At a meeting in Brazil on April 26, 2006, plans moved ahead between Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil for a major transcontinental oil pipeline. The pipeline would be 10,000 kilometers long and would link the four countries plus Paraguay and Uruguay. Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez said the pipeline was essential in "the fight against poverty and exclusion."

However, in the August 15 New Scientist an article titled "Is Venezuela's pipeline the highway to eco-hell?" reported that "environmentalists are furious" about the project. Director of the World Wildlife Fund's Program for Protected Areas in the Amazon Claudio Maretti claimed it would damage the Amazon's ecology. The article highlighted a continuing sore spot for the Venezuelan government, which is leading the Bolivarian socialist revolution.

On the one hand, the Chavez government needs to keep revenue flowing into its coffers to fund its massive array of social programs in Venezuela. On the other hand, the government's major source of revenue is from the export of oil--Venezuela's principal natural resource--by the state oil company PDVSA.

This export income often comes at the expense of the environment. In a stark example of the environmental degradation caused by the oil industry, the December 18, 2000, Business Week described the impact of the industry on Lake Maracaibo, located in the northern state of Zulia (where the bulk of Venezuela's oil has come from). Once a pristine habitat for mangroves and flamingoes, the lake is now crowded with tankers, polluted with toxic industrial waste and is the repository for raw sewage from the surrounding area's 5 million inhabitants.

A more recent problem is the growing infestation of the freshwater duckweed, which is devastating fish stocks and endangering the livelihoods of more than 10,000 fishers. One of the long-term effects of oil drilling is land destabilization, which threatens 60,000 people who live near the lake. Venezuela's daily output of 3 million barrels of oil also contributes to global warming--though only 530,000 barrels a day are used in Venezuela itself.

Legacy of foreign domination

In light of these facts it would be tempting for environmentalists to simply condemn Venezuela as an environmental vandal--part of the problem, not the solution. But where does the blame for this state of affairs really lie?

Venezuela's economy was not created by the current government, but has been shaped by centuries of...