Venezuela’s fragile environment faces rising risks as US pushes for oil and critical minerals and illegal gold mining spreads
- Written by Antonio Machado Allison, Professor of Environment and Latin American Studies, Wesleyan University
Open pit gold mines have spread across large areas of the Orinoco Mining Belt in recent years.Magda Gibelli / AFP via Getty ImagesVenezuela’s Orinoco River Basin is a wild land of lush forests, grasslands and a vast delta of jungle wetlands teeming with wildlife. River dolphins and endangered Orinoco crocodiles ply its waterways, and over...