{"id":658152,"date":"2018-04-06T00:48:48","date_gmt":"2018-04-06T00:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=658152"},"modified":"2018-04-06T00:48:48","modified_gmt":"2018-04-06T00:48:48","slug":"venezuelan-catholic-church-worried-about-mining-devastation-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=658152","title":{"rendered":"Venezuelan Catholic Church worried about mining devastation"},"content":{"rendered":"

By analyst<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

By Valentina Ruiz Leotaud<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

The president of the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network, Mgr. Jos\u00e9 \u00c1ngel Divasson, hosted a press conference<\/a> today where he presented the Catholic Church’s position regarding the exploitation of mineral resources in Venezuela’s southeastern Guayana region. <\/p>\n

Divasson, who also is the vicar apostolic of the Amazonian town of Puerto Ayacucho, said that not only the church but the entire world is worried about the environmental degradation that unregulated mining activities are causing in the Bol\u00edvar and Amazonas states. He also said that the survival of Indigenous communities is at risk.<\/p>\n

The two provinces host the so-called Mining Arc<\/a> of the Orinoco River National Development Strategic Zone, a 111,843 Sq.Km concession area (12.2% of the country’s landmass) for mining gold, diamond, iron ore, copper, bauxite, coltan, among other resources. The creation of the Arc has been controversial<\/a> since it was announced in 2016.<\/p>\n

At today’s event, the priest was joined by another member of the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network, H\u00e9ctor Escandel, who said that Venezuela is moving towards a \u2018predator development model’ in which economic measures are aimed at extracting resources in an uncontrolled fashion just for the sake of accumulating riches for the rich. According to Escandel, such a model creates more poverty and exclusion and must be annihilated.<\/p>\n

Spokespeople for environmental and human rights organizations who were also at the press event got hold of the microphone and denounced that Indigenous peoples living in areas where mineral extraction is happening have been victims of reiterated human rights violations<\/a> and that authorities, instead of helping them, turn the blind eye or retaliate. <\/p>\n

\u201cBeyond utopian speeches, the granting of new concessions and the growing presence of both individuals and entire groups that operate illegally have expanded the areas where mining is taking place. In many cases, this is done by destroying the natural environment,\u201d said Maria Elena Febres, president of Venezuela’s National Council of the Laity.<\/p>\n

Febres added that official communications that present projects at the Mining Arc as the solution to the national problems have not been accompanied by performance reports.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, former presidential candidate, Andr\u00e9s Velasquez, also said that the fragile ecosystem of the Guayana region has been \u201cattacked with no compassion.\u201d<\/p>\n

En la agenda de conversaciones con.paises del mundo debe estar incluido -obligatoriamente- la devastaci\u00f3n ambiental que ha promovido Maduro con su arco minero. El m\u00e1s fragil ecosistema atacado sin compasi\u00f3n alguna. #SOSAmbiental<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Andres Velasquez (@AndresVelasqz) March 16, 2018<\/a><\/p>\n

Venezuela is undergoing a severe economic crisis. GDP has fallen by 40% in the past three years, annual inflation<\/a> has reached 6,147% and eight in 10 people<\/a> live in chronic or severe poverty. This situation drives many to work illegally in the mines at whatever cost.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Nicol\u00e1s Maduro government sees the southern region as the beacon of salvation, given that oil is not generating the desired income for the country formerly dubbed \u201cthe Saudi of Latin America.\u201d <\/p>\n

The post Venezuelan Catholic Church <\/a> \u2026read more<\/a> <\/p>\n

Source:: Infomine<\/a><\/p>\n

The post Venezuelan Catholic Church worried about mining devastation<\/a><\/a> appeared first on Junior Mining Analyst<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By analyst By Valentina Ruiz Leotaud The president of the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network, Mgr. Jos\u00e9 \u00c1ngel Divasson, hosted a press conference today where he presented the Catholic Church’s position regarding the exploitation of mineral resources in Venezuela’s southeastern Guayana region. Divasson, who also is the vicar apostolic of the Amazonian town of Puerto Ayacucho, said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658152"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=658152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=658152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=658152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=658152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}