Climate change -- the case for public ownership

Trent Hawkins, September 24, Links

Arising out of the UK Climate Camp in August 2008 there has developed an interesting debate between Ewa Jasiewicz, an activist in Britain, and well-known radical columnist George Monbiot about the role of so-called “state solutions” to climate change. Jasiewicz’s article, published on the Guardian website[i] and entitled “Time for a Revolution”, was an attack on Monbiot for a “controversial presentation [at climate camp] … in which he endorsed the use of the state as a partner in resolving the climate crisis”. It was also prompted by a debate between Monbiot and former National Union of Mineworkers’ leader and head of Britain’s Socialist Labour Party Arthur Scargill about what is more polluting: nuclear or coal energy.

Jasiewicz stated:

“State solutions to the climate crisis were presented to us 10 years ago through the Kyoto protocol – what were they? To privatise the air we breathe and turn carbon emissions into commodities, to buy and sell atmospheric poison, to create a new market of trading in the means of ecological destruction. It's no wonder many at the camp reject state solutions to climate change.

“The question is, who and under what conditions, controls decision making, and has climate-changing power?”

In response, Monbiot, in an article on his website[ii] wrote:

“[Jasiewicz] claims to want to stop global warming, but she makes that task 100 times harder by rejecting all state and corporate solutions. It seems to me that what she really wants to do is to create an anarchist utopia, and use climate change as an excuse to engineer it.

“Stopping runaway climate change must take precedence over every other aim. Everyone in this movement knows that there is very little time: the window of opportunity in which we can prevent two degrees [Celsius] of warming is closing fast. We have to use all the resources we can lay hands on, and these must include both governments and corporations. Or perhaps she intends to build the installations required to turn the energy economy around -- wind farms, wave machines, solar thermal plants in the Sahara, new grid connections and public transport systems -- herself?’’

There are some confused notions in these two articles, like the Kyoto protocol was a “state solution to the climate crisis” (Jasiewicz ) and that the role of the state is to “prevent the strong from crushing the weak” (Monbiot). However, the basic point that both fail to comprehend is that we do need the wealth and resources that are currently monopolised by corporations to stop climate change, however what’s needed is for that wealth to be torn from the hands of those corporations and put under popular control.

The reality is that no fossil fuel corporation can be convinced to stop expanding and making profits and instead invest its wealth in a wholesale conversion of its operations to a renewable energy-powered, sustainable industry. At the same time no capitalist government is going to be either willing or able to constrain corporations’ rights to make profits in order to drastically reduce emissions.

In other words, the only way we can make use of the massive corporate wealth that isn’t in the hands of the people is with a revolutionary struggle that institutes a government which acts in the interests of people and the planet and puts control of all sectors of the economy in the hands of ordinary working people.

The real question is what needs to be done to achieve this? There does not need to be a contradiction between what we call for today in terms of immediate measures to combat global warming and building the movement for revolutionary change. Arguing for the nationalisation of polluting industries, to be placed under the democratic control of ordinary people, is essential to constructing a movement capable of halting climate change.

Market anarchy or a planned approach

Since the release of the interim Garnaut Review (a report commissioned to recommend what policies are required by Australia to address climate change) and the Australian federal Labor government’s green paper on climate change, the focus of the debate has been almost solely on what is the best market response to global warming and how much “government regulation” is appropriate to guide this. The role of the government is reduced to determining how much large corporations will be subsidised under an emissions trading scheme (ETS).

On August 27, 2008, a report by the National Snow and Ice Data Center found that the amount of ice coverage in the Arctic was the second-worst on record (the worst being last 2007).[iii] It stated: “With about three weeks left in the Arctic summer, this year could wind up breaking that previous record”.[iv] There is now almost near certainty that the Arctic will be ice free in summer within five to 10 years.[v]

It is clear that we have reached a major tipping point in climate change, which indicates that we are already experiencing dangerous climate change. As Dr Jay Zwally, glaciologist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, put it, “the Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming… and now as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died.”[vi]

NASA Climatologist Dr James Hansen has concluded that a safe climate zone necessary to preserve the Arctic lies somewhere within the region of 300 to 325 parts per million (ppm) carbon dioxide (CO2) atmospheric concentration. However, we currently are sitting around 385ppm.[vii]

In short we need an urgent and immediate response to the crisis, one which relies on a centralised accounting and coordination of the activities of major polluting industries through the government and enforced by the state. Market mechanisms, corporate handouts and government investment in false solutions like “clean coal” spell nothing less than the death of the liveable planet.

Cuba and Venezuela show us what is possible

Two examples illustrate what is possible when the primary sources of wealth are under popular control.

The first is Cuba, where in the space of 10 years it was able to effect an extraordinary transformation from a highly import-based and unsustainable agriculture and energy sector, to become the most ecologically sustainable country in the world.

With the advent of the film The Power of Community, a number of environmental activists have developed the perception that this transformation was merely initiated by the artificially imposed “peak oil” crisis that hit Cuba after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Because of the US-enforced and illegal economic blockade of Cuba, Cuba was forced to rely heavily on the Soviet Union as its primary trading partner. As a consequence, 98% of its oil and oil-based products came from the USSR. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba lost half its oil imports in two years. Furthermore, 66% of all its food was imported and agriculture operated along the “Green Revolution” model, whereby single monoculture crops where grown primarily for export, using high levels of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides to increase yield. [viii]

The result was an enormous food crisis. While Cuba’s response included community initiatives to grow urban vegetable and fruit gardens, the biggest factor that enabled Cuba to rapidly overcome the crisis was the significant level of state ownership of resources and industry and the existence of a socialist government.

A very useful report conducted by the UK Institute of Science in Sustainability, “Organic Cuba without Fossil Fuels”, documents exactly how the government was able to drive the process of transformation.[ix]

Beginning with a nationwide call to increase food production by restructuring agriculture, the government redivided the land and gave control of that land to the community, to best determine how to respond to the community’s food requirements. One major initiative was in urban areas, where all sorts of land was given over by the government for food production, including old car parks, disused buildings, vacant lots, etc. As a consequence 60% of Cuba’s fresh fruit and vegetables are grown in urban farms. [x]

But the government’s role extended far beyond this. It set up a seed bank in the cities to distribute seeds to urban farmers, it massively invested in biotechnology to develop increased food production without pesticides, and it even passed a law banning the use of pesticides.[xi]

As Cuban permaculturalist Roberto Perez pointed out in an interview with Green Left Weekly, no rapid solution to Cuba’s crisis would have been possible without Cuba having control over the totality of it’s resources.

“When the revolution gained sovereignty over the resources of the country, especially the land and minerals, this was the base for sustainability. You cannot think about sustainability of your resources if they are in the hands of a foreign country or in private hands. Even without knowing, we were creating the basis for sustainability.”[xii]

The second example worth considering is Venezuela.

Venezuela is one of the major oil-producing nations in the world, being the fourth-largest exporter of oil to the United States. Despite this, the country had high levels of poverty and extensive environmental destruction.

While Venezuela’s oil industry was technically nationalised in the 1970s, PDVSA was the only state-owned oil company that ran at a loss. This was primarily due to the fact that the profits of the company where being used to fatten the pockets of the bureaucrats who leached off the industry.

Since socialist president Hugo Chavez was elected in 1998 the government has taken back control of the oil industry and used the wealth from it to fund social programs aimed at alleviating poverty.

It has also been extremely conscious of reducing the country’s dependence on the oil industry and of ending the legacy of putting the needs of the environment behind that of oil production.

This is indicated in the new United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) program, which includes a section on “Defence of Nature; Planned Production”. This states that “the program of the PSUV proposes the preservation of nature and the planning of production for the satisfaction of collective necessities in harmony with the requirements of the ecosystem.” [xiii]

In 2005 the Chávez government and the PDVSA oil company made the decision to eliminate lead-based petrol. Since then, PDVSA has begun recuperating green areas, reducing emissions and cleaning up rivers and lakes. [xiv]

Under Mission Energy, some 53 million light bulbs in more than 5 million homes have been replaced with energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs[xv], with the next step being to substitute almost 27 million inefficient incandescent light bulbs by energy-saving light bulbs in the official, industrial and commercial sectors.[xvi]

President Chávez has also announced plans for a wind farm to generate electricity on the Caribbean coast[xvii] and in April 2007 the government banned construction of all new coal mines on Indigenous land in the opposition-controlled, major oil-producing state of Zulia.[xviii]

While there are major restrictions on the Venezuelan government’s ability to implement these plans, due to a corrupt bureaucracy within state institutions, it is clear that none of these things would be possible if the government didn’t have real control over the oil industry to be able to fund and enact these programs.

Nationalisation, a transitional demand

As socialists we recognise that the only way out of the mess of climate change is for the vast bulk of the economy to be put under public ownership and control, with the creation of a workers’ government that can oversee a thorough and detailed process in which the entire community can have democratic control over how the economy is run and for what purposes.

However this doesn’t prevent us advancing the demand for the nationalisation of strategic industries even before we reach that stage. In fact this demand is extremely important for posing the possibility of working people having complete and democratic control over the wealth of society (which after all was created by the labour of working people and has been stolen by a tiny number of capitalist owners), and building a movement that can win this.

Given the state of the crisis and the urgency with which we need to act, any effective program of action advanced by the environment movement to stop climate change must include the demand for nationalisation – that is to put the key energy-producing and energy-consuming industries, and other unsustainable industries, under public ownership.

But first we need to make it clear that we aren’t arguing for a public sector operating like the commercialised, profit-making enterprises we see all too often today.

Most of the public sector, if it already hasn’t been sold off and converted into privately run companies, has been turned into more or less the same thing in preparation for the time when it becomes politically possible for governments to privatise it.

Second, the public sector under capitalism is run by a big bureaucracy that the people have no control over. While we can vote for people to be in parliament who can introduce new laws, we don’t have any say over who the state employs to implement those laws. Not to mention the fact that the major parties in parliament are the representatives of big business and act to preserve profits. This means that such a struggle for nationalisation needs to be accompanied with a push for real democratic control over how the public sector is organised.

What would real government action on climate change look like?

Currently, governments in Australia, both state and federal, aren’t just sitting on their hands on climate change; they are funding and pushing for the expansion of the very industries that contribute most to the problem.

So the question is, what kind of government response is needed to avert the catastrophe?

Electricity sector

First it is essential that the electricity generation sector be put under public ownership, instead of sold off to private companies, as is being attempted by the New South Wales state Labor government. The majority of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions come from coal-fired power generation. In order to stop global warming we need to halt the construction of all new coal-fired power stations and effect a rapid conversion from coal to renewable energy, primarily wind and solar, within five to 10 years. Yet this will be virtually impossible unless the government has complete control over the electricity sector.

Furthermore, a national network of publicly owned electricity generators would ensure that the electricity produced actually meets people’s needs. A board could be elected democratically by the people and given the task of drafting a plan to transform the sector to meet the needs of the environment. This plan could be ratified by referendum and if those in charge fail to implement the necessary measures there should be the right to recall them.

The government could also set up programs to roll out energy-efficient light bulbs and whitegoods, and ban the selling of inefficient ones.

The government should adopt stringent limits on how much greenhouse gases private companies are allowed to emit and take serious measures to curb energy inefficiency. If a company continues to break the rules it should be made clear that it will be nationalised.

Public transport and freight

In Victoria, the public transport system was sold off to the multinational company Connex under the Liberal government in the 1990s. Connex’s contract is due to expire next year, but despite the atrocious state of Melbourne’s public transport system, the state Labor government is now toying with the idea of renewing Connex’s contract.[xix]

A recent article in the Melbourne Age newspaper showed that there had been a 70% increase in public transport use in last 10 years, but only a 9% increase in services, and very few new services in peak hours.[xx] Instead of re-nationalising the public transport system, the government is considering the construction of a new road tunnel at a cost of A$9 billion, and the introduction of “congestion taxes” and new tollways.[xxi] Meanwhile the major “City Link” tollway nets the Transurban corporation $1 million a day![xxii]

The federal government should nationalise Australia’s vehicle manufacturing industry, and retool the factories to pump out new trams, trains and buses to provide the massive needed expansion of the public transport system and, if necessary, produce electric cars that can be plugged into grid for those who can’t access public transport.

A publicly run public transport system is essential for rapidly expanding public transport, so that we can take millions of cars off the road, while providing the necessary levels of alternative transport. This must extend to rural areas and involve the development of high-speed, long-distance trains to drastically reduce need for carbon-intensive flying.

Another major task is the moving of freight. It was recently revealed that the state government is planning to expand Victoria’s roads to allow more “B Triple” trucks – three-carriage freight trucks.[xxiii] Such a plan is ridiculous in the context of climate change, when what’s needed is the development of a thorough system of freight-train lines to drastically reduce emissions. Such railways can be electrified with renewable energy, which could cut emissions significantly.

Water

Another problem project of the Victoria Labor government is the $3 billion desalination plant, which will have its carbon emissions “offset” by ``clean coal’’ and other “clean’’ energy sources, possibly from interstate.[xxiv] The plant is being used to discourage people from installing rainwater tanks, and failing to introduce tighter restrictions on commercial irrigators who use up most of the state's water.[xxv]

Australia is still in extreme drought, with constantly diminishing water supplies. There is a threat to the survival of one of our most important water supplies – the Murray-Darling river system. It was recently revealed in a report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics that found that almost 2 gigalitres a year is consumed on Victorian farms each year. [xxvi] As the Age reported on August 28, “in total the Australian farming sector used 8521 gigalitres of water in 2006-07, with nine out of every 10 litres used for irrigation.”[xxvii]

To preserve future water supplies and the natural environment, it is essential that our water supply is completely publicly owned, and managed in a manner that responds to the needs of people, not of big business.

One major thing the government must do is take over the most water-consuming farms, particularly cotton and rice, and instead use the land to grow less water-intensive crops like hemp. Instead, the government is unwilling to restructure the water allocation to irrigators to help save the Murray-Darling system.

For domestic urban water usage the government could set up a system to roll out free water tanks and fit grey water systems to each home.

There are also a range of big corporate industries like the aluminium industry, logging, coalmining etc., which contribute enormously to climate change. The basis of their profits are processes which are intrinsically harmful to the environment so it is essential for them to be put under public ownership. Only by ensuring that the big industries are no longer run for profits, will it be possible to determine to what extent they are actually needed and to what degree their impact on the environment can be reduced.

Jobs versus the environment?

The bulk of the industries that are the biggest polluters are simply going to have to be shut down, and no corporation is going to willingly accept such a proposition. Furthermore, while some corporations are investing in renewable energy, what’s needed is a massive government investment and commitment to renewable energy, and the direct conversion of the fossil fuel industry not just a gradual “transition”.

The socialist approach puts it clearly that it isn't about putting the environment ahead of jobs, but instead that the only way any sustainable industry can operate is with workers to run it. It's clear there is a huge pool of possible workers to fill jobs in new renewable and sustainable industries, but these workers will be thrown onto the scrap heap unless there is a government plan to utilise these workers and skill them to work in those industries.

The reality is that under capitalism big business regularly chucks workers onto the scrap heap, in order to preserve profits – just look at the 380 workers being axed from the Fairfax newspapers in Australia. It’s not like there is less news to cover!

Some right-wing unions, such as the Australian Workers Union, have been able to tap into this fear by workers that they will be left without jobs. The radical environmental movement must make it clear that the only solution is the nationalisation of those industries which will have to be reorganised or phased out, to allow public boards to be established to plan the rapid industrial transition and retrain workers so that they can be (voluntarily) deployed where they are needed. This is what happens in the public education sector.

What we propose also includes a huge investment in education and skills training – to re-skill workers in the fossil fuel industry to run solar thermal plants or build wind turbines etc. There also needs to be serious investment in the research and development of more energy-efficient technology and renewable energy sources.

But it is clear that no demand for nationalisation can be won without a mass struggle of workers that forces the government to do so. Furthermore we know that no industry can operate long term within a capitalist framework as a truly community-controlled public sector. Whenever a private corporation thinks it can make a profit, there will be a push from our present capitalist governments to carve up the public sector and privatise it. Despite the fact that these are necessary services and real public assets, wealth built up by the hard labour of working people, capitalism cares only about finding new areas it can take over and operate for profit.

If we win our demand for partial nationalisation, it would open the way for many more workers to comprehend the advantages of far wider (and even complete) public ownership of the economy and shift the struggle towards achieving real democratic control over entire industries. Only when we have control of the gears, pedals and steering wheels of the economy will we have any real chance to steer us away from the brink of a climate catastrophe.

[Trent Hawkins is an activist with the Australian socialist youth organisation Resistance and a member of the Democratic Socialist Perspective, a Marxist organisation affiliated to the Australian Socialist Alliance. He also runs the Inhabitable Earth blog at http://inhabitable-earth.blogspot.com/.]


[i] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/21/climatechange.kingsnorthclimatecamp

[ii] http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/08/22/identity-politics-in-climate-change-hell/

[iii] http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5io8-mhR216BbP-65r8IrK1C6y8ZQD92QQS1O0

[iv] Ibid.

[v] http://www.climatecodered.net/arctic.html

[vi] ibid.

[vii] http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TargetCO2_20080407.pdf

[viii] http://www.i-sis.org.uk/OrganicCubawithoutFossilFuels.php

[ix] ibid.

[x] ibid.

[xi] ibid.

[xii] http://www.greenleft.org.au/2008/748/38676

[xiii] http://links.org.au/node/261

[xiv] http://www.rethinkvenezuela.com/downloads/Venezuela%20and%20the%20Environment.htm

[xv] http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/708/36762

[xvi] http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/2007/0618chavez.htm

[xvii] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/04/AR2007020400601.html

[xviii] http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/706/36653

[xix] http://www.theage.com.au/national/connex-may-be-here-to-stay-20080828-44di.html

[xx] http://www.theage.com.au/national/train-trips-exceed-200-million-20080820-3ywr.html?page=-1

[xxi] http://www.theage.com.au/national/tolls-and-taxes-on-roads-agenda-20080824-41es.html?page=-1

[xxii] http://www.theage.com.au/national/transurban-to-pursue-100m-over-tunnel-20080813-3v2l.html

[xxiii] http://www.theage.com.au/national/anger-over-megatrucks-plan-20080828-44cw.html

[xxiv] http://www.theage.com.au/environment/environmental-study-gives-desal-plant-green-light-20080820-3ywm.html

[xxv] http://www.theage.com.au/national/desal-and-water-tank-wars-20080824-41et.html?page=-1

[xxvi] http://www.theage.com.au/national/water-use-falls-after-farm-cutbacks-20080828-44fh.html

[xxvii] ibid.

Will the Bolivarian Revolution End Coal Mining in Venezuela?

James Suggett, May 29th, Venezuelanalysis.com

Plans for new coal mining in the Sierra de Perijá, the northwestern region of the state of Zulia, Venezuela, were suspended by President Hugo Chávez last year following anti-coal declarations by Chávez and several ministers. The Wayúu, Yukpa, and Barí indigenous communities who would have been displaced by the projects cautiously interpreted the suspension as a temporary sign of relief. But their struggle against coal mining has lasted a quarter of a century and will not conclude until mining concessions are repealed for good.

On May 11th, 2008 President Hugo Chávez announced on his weekly Sunday talk show Aló Presidente that Corpozulia, the state-owned development corporation in the oil and mineral-rich state, would acquire 51% of all coal mining projects in the region within two years. Transnational coal companies that already operate in Zulia, such as Carbones de la Guajira, which is controlled by the Chevron-Texaco-owned holding company Inter-American Coal, will be turned into state-run “socialist” enterprises, the president said.

Have plans for new coal mining been renewed, this time under the management of the state rather than the transnationals? The national government did indeed decide in 2005 to create a national mining company that would replace transnational companies. Since then, Venezuela’s electricity, telecommunications, oil, cement, and steel sectors have been nationalized, which suggests that coal could be the newest front.

However, a recent anti-coal decision by the Ministry of the Environment suggests otherwise. On May 15th, Minister Yubirí Ortega proclaimed a total ban on open-pit coal mining and gold mining in the Imataca Forest in southeastern Venezuela, and the revocation of the environmental permits previously granted to transnational gold mining companies in that region. An official statement of the Toronto-based gold mining corporation Crystallex, which had coveted the Imataca concession for years, said the ministry “appears to be in opposition to all mineral mining in the Imataca region.”

Minister Ortega cited environmental concerns and protests from local indigenous communities in the Imataca region as the reasons for her decision, but it is unclear if the ministry will extend this policy to the Sierra de Perijá.

Coal policy in Zulia has gone through several back-and-forth changes in the last four years since new coal plans were announced, partially because the home base of decision-making power in the region has been obscured. Corpozulia, nicknamed the “second government of Zulia” by the indigenous communities, has contradicted national mining policies on several occasions. Corpozulia and transnational corporations are allies, and their pro-coal tentacles grip and surreptitiously manipulate local, state, and national decision-making bodies, including the national ministries under whose authority the state corporation is officially ascribed. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Zulia’s governor is Manual Rosales, who was an active participant the U.S.-backed April 2002 coup and ran against Chávez in the 2006 presidential elections.

The government’s indecisiveness could also be because the choice about whether to expand or eliminate coal mining aggravates a persistent contradiction in Venezuela’s evolving, multi-faceted development model.

On the one hand, it appears the government seeks to expand the exploitation of natural resources, necessarily displacing the local population, while administering the projects in a more worker-friendly way and investing the profits in housing, education, health care and other social programs for which the Chávez administration is renown.

On the other hand, a large sector of the indigenous communities of the Sierra de Perijá have taken the initiative to organize their communities in an empowering, ecologically sustainable way that allows the local economy, culture, language, and identity to survive and be determined by the local people. They oppose any type of “progress” that includes coal exploitation.

Such community-led projects have been embraced by the federal government in other instances. The “23 de enero” barrio in Caracas is an inspiring example. But will local empowerment initiatives be prioritized in the region that holds 80% of Latin America’s coal?

Only by way of tireless struggle and confrontation have the local indigenous peoples injected their voices and opinions into the debate over whether the Bolivarian Revolution will carry on coal’s legacy in the Sierra de Perijá. It is crucial to review the history of this conflict in order to shed light on the realities which have led up to the ambiguous present situation, and to anticipate what the future holds.

Coal in the Bolivarian Revolution

In 2004, the Venezuelan government approved mining concessions for three mines along the Socuy, Mache, and Cachirí rivers in northwestern Zulia to be operated by the Brazilian, U.S., and Dutch conglomerate Vale do Rio Doce, the Dutch and United States company Inter-American Coal, and the Irish coal company Caño Seco, along with Corpozulia and its state-owned affiliate Carbozulia. The same year, the government also turned over a 12,000 hectare (30,000 acre) concession of lands formerly demarcated for the Barí indigenous community to the Chilean coal company Carbones del Perijá.

Corpozulia President Martínez Mendoza announced during a ceremony presided over by President Chávez that the projects would contribute $20 million to social programs in the Zulian region in the first year. Corpozulia spokesperson Hernando Torrealba, projected that yearly national coal production would be increased from 8.3 million tons to 39 million tons. Given that Venezuela’s internal coal consumption hovers around 100,000 tons of coal per year, the majority of the extracted coal was destined for the United States, Japan, Europe, and South America, Torrealba confirmed.

These developments fit the plans of South American Regional Infrastructure Integration plan (IIRSA), which was based on the recommendations of the World Bank and the Southern integration organization MERCOSUR, of which Venezuela currently aspires to become a member.

Chávez and Colombian President Álvaro Uribe collaborated to concretize IIRSA plans for the massive expansion of export infrastructure, including the Port of Bolívar (some said it would be called the Port of America) in the gulf of Venezuela, railroads, superhighways, and bridges. All of this would be necessary to export coal by way of the Colombian Pacific Ocean, Panama and Central America, and the “Andean Axis” of IIRSA which would link South American countries.

These announcements ignited the most recent phase of the anti-coal struggle of the indigenous communities allied with ecologist groups from Zulia’s state capital Maracaibo and Venezuela’s alternative media network, ANMCLA.

The communities of the Socuy, Maché, and Cachirí rivers had already received refugees who had been displaced by the two open-pit mines opened along the nearby Guasare River in 1988 and in the late 1990s, which still operate today. The Devil’s Pass Mine and North Mine are controlled by Carbones del Guasare, a conglomerate which includes the U.S. company Peabody, the English and South African company Anglo-American Coal, and Inter-American Coal.

In well-documented reports by independent media, these refugees describe how they were promised to be moved to fertile lands and promised health care, housing, educational and cultural activities, and how these promises were not kept. Reports are plentiful of rashes, lung diseases, fertile lands rendered infertile, aborted livestock pregnancies, and the protracted contamination of the Guasare River on which local communities depend for subsistence.

Proponents of new mines also promised local residents that the coal will be extracted cleanly and they will benefit from the profits. There is evidence that these promises are more credible than those of previous governments. Indeed, the government’s subsidized food market, Mercal, Barrio Adentro health care clinics, and educational programs have impacted the neighborhoods just outside of the lands the coal companies seek.

Despite having received some benefits from these government programs, the 350 indigenous families living on top of the coal deposits are skeptical of any promises coming from Corpozulia or the government. They have taken the reins to organize alternative community programs which respond better to their culture, native language, and history. These inspiring local initiatives deserve attention and will be detailed in Part II of this series, since the purpose of Part I is an overview of coal politics in the region.

The two active mines employ approximately 2,200 workers including the transportation workers. Most engineers are creole or white, and most lower-level workers are of indigenous descent and lived off the land before the mines took over. Workers have denounced not being paid and not receiving health benefits. Lung disease is extremely common. Workers have been intimidated or fired when they organized to defend their rights. Worker unions are small and dominated by the leadership, which in some cases has made deals with the management to push sections of the workforce, particularly transportation workers, into lower-paid, less protected contract work. The workers thus contracted were registered by Corpozulia as “worker cooperatives” promoted by the state company, even though cooperativism was not the real purpose.

On several occasions, the workers, with the financial and political backing of Corpozulia and Zulia’s principal newspaper Panorama, have defended the coal industry and asserted that coal exploitation does not actually contaminate the environment. However, the workers are not clamoring for nationalization, and have on other occasions acquiesced to government proposals for a transition away from coal.

The towns in the area are frequented by both coal workers and small farmers who sell their products or attend school in the city. The towns are not wholly dependent on coal, and coal mining is not a big part of Venezuela’s economy. It composes less than one percent of national GDP, and Venezuelan coal deposits represent less than 1.5% of the coal in the world, according to professors from the University of Zulia in Maracaibo.

On January 3rd, 2005, the waste disposal site of the Devil’s Pass mine spilled an estimated 20,000 to 120,000 liters of diesel waste into the Guasare River, according to an investigation by the National Front for the Defense of Water and Life, made up mainly of professors and activists from western Venezuela. Indigenous communities downriver, which had not been originally forced from their land when the mine arrived, were no longer able to survive in the zone due to the contamination. Many of them migrated to lands nourished by the Socuy, Maché, and Cachirí rivers. Two years later, $90 million was allocated from the National Development Fund (FONDEN) for the cleanup of the Guasare River.

Following this incident, amidst increasing pressure from the indigenous communities of the Sierra de Perijá and their growing network of social movement allies across western Venezuela, President Chávez and several of his ministers began to change their rhetoric on mining policy.

In September 2005, Chávez proclaimed a “big turnaround” in national mining policy, assuring that Venezuela would no longer grant private mining concessions to national or foreign companies, but instead would favor state-run “socialist” enterprises and small-scale mining cooperatives that would act more responsibly. Chávez said, “we are going to launch a national mining company of our own – we do not need [outside] investment.”

The policy shift was substantiated when 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) of mining land were handed over to local cooperatives and 125 new state-owned Social Production Units (UPS) were created, mainly in another of Venezuela’s principal mining regions near the Imataca Forest in the south eastern state of Bolívar where similar conflicts have occurred among indigenous communities, transnational gold mining corporations, and the government.

Shortly after this, in 2006, the Venezuelan National Assembly unanimously voted to reform the mining law to force companies with idle mines to become minority partners in mixed enterprises with the state.

This set the legal precedent for Chávez’s most recent declarations. The government had decided to stand up to transnationals by taking charge of coal mining, but showed no signs that the mining would be halted. It remained unclear what effect this would have on the active mines, and whether new coal extraction plans would proceed under state management.

In January 2006, during the World Social Forum in Caracas, indigenous communities from the Sierra de Perijá and their allies marched to demand that all new mining plans be discarded. Independent media allies pounded their networks with news on the reclamations being made.

Then, on May 24th of that year, Chávez made his first public statements in opposition to coal mining in Zulia. Chávez told the press in the Miraflores presidential building in Caracas that he had said to Corpozulia President Martínez Mendoza, “Look, if there is no method of assuring the respect of the forests and the mountains… in the Sierra de Perijá, where the coal is… this coal will remain in below the ground.” This is “a concept that each day should become more of a reality, it should be concretized in our model of construction of socialism,” Chávez added.

The president repeated his anti-coal statements on June 10th, 2006 in Maracaibo. Paradoxically, during the same press conference, he ratified the construction of the Bolívar Port, railways, mega-highways, and bridges that were an integral part of the 2004 plan to expand coal exploitation in Zulia according as part of IIRSA. He also announced plans to construct a grand pipeline between Venezuela and Panama.

At that point, the government and Corpozulia’s paths diverged, their policy agendas began to clash, and Chávez’s declarations were sometimes out of sync with the actions of his supporters.

On November 17th of that year, the president launched the Energy Revolution Mission, a federal program which replaced 300,000 light bulbs across the country with energy-efficient fluorescent light bulbs, demonstrating the government’s commitment to save energy so as not to rely on coal-powered electricity, which was the previous plan.

Meanwhile, Corpozulia stepped up its acts of brutal intimidation against indigenous communities’ efforts to organize in the Sierra de Perijá. The weekend of Indigenous Resistance Day, October 12th, the communities invited activist allies to gather in the Socuy River community known in the Wayúu language as Wayuumana for an anti-coal conference. Before the activists from the city arrived, Corpozulia functionaries accompanied by armed National Guard troops arrived in Wayuumana, uninvited, and aggressively interrogated and threatened the Wayúu gathered there. The interrogators quickly retreated, however, when a community leader pulled out a hand-held video camera that had been gifted by independent journalists.

Those months were especially tense because Chávez was running for re-election against Zulia’s coup-supporting governor, Manuel Rosales. The communities in the Socuy area were suspected of being agents of the opposition because they criticized the president during election season. The indigenous peoples and their allies were frequently accused by Corpozulia and pro-Chávez electoral campaigners of being counter-revolutionaries, terrorists, and lackeys of the empire.

In reality, Governor Rosales has always been recognized by the communities in the Sierra de Perijá as an ally of transnational coal corporations, along with Corpozulia, although Corpozulia and Rosales are publicly at odds. Both red-shirted (pro-Chávez) and blue, green and yellow-shirted (opposition) government officials from the federal, state, and local levels have worked in the interests of pro-coal sectors, and are not trusted by the community. The community does not claim to be Chavista or anti-Chavista, but rather an indigenous struggle of which the government is sometimes an ally.

In the midst of this, anti-coal momentum seemed to be on the rise. In October 2006, the Minister of the Environment Jacqueline Faría made a sweeping statement that coal was "unnecessary" for national development, since Venezuela had plenty of oil to rely on. She clarified, however, that coal extraction would be permitted only by presidential order in areas where the mining would not harm the rivers which are Maracaibo’s principal source of potable water. Since Chávez had previously come out against coal, Sierra de Perijá communities rejoiced at what they perceived to be a sign of victory.

An executive ministry report from July 2005 shows that Minister Faría had originally made this exact policy recommendation more than a year before she made public statements about it.

In a strange and unfortunate turn of events, Minister Faría was dismissed shortly following her nationally televised declarations. The new minister appointed after President Chávez’s landslide re-election in December 2006, Yubirí Ortega (who currently holds the post), did not immediately uphold Faría’s policy pronouncements. At the same time, Corpozulia and ministry officials repeatedly arrived in the Sierra de Perijá in their satellite technology-equipped jeeps and hummers for purposes that were not explained to the local community, and it soon became clear that the pro-coal campaign in the region was still underway.

Sierra de Perijá communities marched on Caracas once again in March 2007, this time as part of the broader “March for All Our Struggles”. The march was promoted by ANMCLA and included the Ezequiel Zamora National Farmer’s Front, a radical farmers’ rights group, Urban Land Committees (CTUs) representing Venezuela’s barrio-based revolutionaries, and the left wing of Venezuela’s workers movement. These groups collectively sent the message that, while they support President Chávez as a leader of the revolution, the persistent contradictions which perpetuate many forms of oppression in the country must be overcome, and the oppressed must be the protagonists in team with the government.

A smaller countermarch occurred in front of the Ministry of the Environment in Caracas. Workers from the active mines on the Guasare River and community councils from the municipality of Mara where the miners live were brought to Caracas by their employers. They declared that “coal is life” and demanded that the Ministry of the Environment provide them with an alternative form of subsistence if the mines are closed.

While the anti-coal indigenous communities and their allies rejected new coal mining projects, they called for a gradual end to the active mines. Some anti-coal activists met with miners to discuss possible methods of phasing out coal while supporting the miners as they find alternative forms of subsistence.

Success seemed once again on the horizon for the anti-coal movement. The next day, on March 20, 2007, the new Minister of the Environment declared that, by presidential order, plans for new coal mines and the expansion of existing coal mines in the state of Zulia were officially suspended.

Simultaneously, the community councils from the municipality of Mara declared their support for the Environment Ministry’s proposal of sustainable agriculture and tourism as alternatives to coal mining in their communities.

Two months later, Chávez reiterated publicly that he had “ordered [coal mining] to stop” and that “between the forests and coal, I'll keep the forests, the rivers, the environment… coal remains below the ground!” He acknowledged the “high level of lung diseases in all those communities where the coal big-rigs pass through,” and said he had flown in a helicopter over the prospective coal mining areas and seen the beautiful forest for himself.

During the same declaration, however, the president stated, “now, if someday a technology is developed to extract this coal without destroying the forest, well then, that would be a reserve for the future, it is possible”. To this day, coal concessions have not been officially repealed by the president, and the mines on the Guasare River continue to operate.

The pro-coal campaign of Corpozulia persisted in the face of the government’s anti-coal rhetoric. On May 14th, 2007, the Panorama newspaper, which is usually pro-government, published a two full-page, color advertisement defending the coal mines. The ad accused ecologist groups of being counter-revolutionary, and criticized the Wayúu, Barí, and Yukpa communities of sadly falling into the scheme of the opposition led by Governor Rosales.

Since the Ministry of the Environment and the coal miners` community councils came to an agreement on an alternative form of subsistence for mining communities, no further steps have been taken toward this end.

Also, the IIRSA infrastructure expansion plan is still officially underway. In October 2007, Chávez and Colombia’s President Álvaro Uribe jointly announced the completion of a 220 kilometer pipeline connecting Venezuela, Panama, and the Pacific Ocean. The two presidents signed a gas industries integration accord with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa. The project was promoted as a symbol of the regional integration of which South American independence fighter Simón Bolívar dreamed. But for the anti-coal movement, it caused uncertainty as to whether coal mining would eventually be made part of the project again.

Uncertain Future

After four years of conflict over coal exploitation in Zulia, the outcome of this complex and drawn-out debate over Venezuela’s development paradigm is far from clear.

Sources from within Corpozulia have leaked that Chávez recently made firm, private statements to Corpozulia directors that new coal projects will not proceed. The president’s enthusiasm for the construction of the Port of Bolívar, which was one of the principal projects Chávez had planned in 2004 with President Uribe, has also waned, possibly because of the current diplomatic dispute between the two countries, these sources report.

Meanwhile, Corpozulia continues campaigning for coal exploitation on several new fronts. The state company is asserting various forms of control over local community councils, promising to help indigenous communities become shareholders in the future coal projects, and hiring infiltrators of indigenous descent to carry out the company’s media campaign and intelligence work with a lower profile. This local and regional battle for control of community councils, for the demarcation of indigenous territories, and the ways this has been affected by recent secessionist efforts by anti-Chávez sectors of the Zulia state legislature, shall be examined in the second part of this series.

Chávez Increases Corn Prices, Announces Shift From Oil to Food in Venezuela

James Suggett, April 27th, Venezuelanalysis.com

Mérida, April 26, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, announced Thursday that the regulated prices of corn and sorghum will be raised by 30% and that a new Socialist Agricultural Development Fund (FONDAS) has been launched to promote national food production.

“The day will arrive when, just like we send petroleum to other countries, we will be able to do the same with corn, because severe hunger continues to grow [worldwide],” the president stated.

Venezuela produced 2.2 million tons of corn last year, which represents a 300% increase in national corn production since 1999, Chávez declared. He recounted that corn production had fallen in the decade prior to his election from 1.2 million tons in 1988 to 980,000 tons in 1998.

Nicolás Constatino, the president of the Venezuelan Corn Flour Industries Association, which has made several appeals for an increase in the regulated price of corn, said the new adjusted price should actually be 25% higher than it is, and that the price of corn flour should now be increased by 29% to maintain equilibrium, if the country is to satisfy its growing internal demand in 2009.

Chávez assured that in addition to increased prices, corn producers will be offered a per-kilo subsidy, low interest rates on credits, and certified seeds with the help of the new 26 hectare (64 acre) “socialist” genetic technology center in Barinas state, from which Thursday’s announcements were made.

Also, Venezuela will continue to receive tractors and other agricultural technology from Argentina and plans are underway to build a tractor factory with assistance from Iran, Chávez mentioned, emphasizing his gratitude toward these nations for their cooperation in Venezuela’s efforts to achieve food security.

The head of state also referred to the United Nations’ call for increased world food production to help alleviate the food crisis that has spurred riots and protests in 33 nations. “The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) called on all the countries in the world to produce more food, and in this we are already moving forward,” Chávez boasted.

He highlighted that general food production in Venezuela has risen by 2.3% annually during his presidential term, compared to .9% during the decade prior. This is good, but not good enough, because producing enough for national consumption plus exports “is the ideal and we are going to achieve it,” the president said.

However, the president of the National Federation of Cattle Producers (FEDENAGAS), Genaro Méndez, said the government “presents statistics that do not correspond to reality.”

According to Méndez, the dairy industry in the country is at a “standstill,” and beef production decreased by 100,000 tons last year, in contrast to government figures. “I ask that the national government tell the truth to the producers in the country,” Méndez said.

But Vice President Ramón Carrizalez assured in an interview that the government has boosted its research efforts on the entire food supply chain, and now has an accurate assessment of 80% of the national situation.

Carrizalez said this is part of the “permanent” process of “Revision, Rectification, and Re-advance,” the “three Rs” which have characterized the period following the electoral defeat of the constitutional reform proposal last year.

With regard to food, the government “has had to make changes because we realized we were wrong in some things… we did not eliminate the bureaucratic obstacles like we believed… we are permanently self-criticizing and correcting, but what I can for sure guarantee is that we have advanced.”

According to Carrizalez, the government does not want to isolate the private sector, but rather has “been in a process of frank conversations” with private businesses. The private sector has been right in some cases, prompting the government to improve the situation by lifting price controls on certain products and reducing obstacles to imports, Carrizalez recounted.

“There exists a serious private sector that wants to resolve problems, that wants to converse with us. We do not ask that they come politically in our direction, no, what we want is a nationalist attitude. With them, we want to work,” the Vice President told Panorama newspaper.

The government’s goal is to have a 3 month reserve supply of food by the end of this year, Carrizalez said. He insisted that the situation in Venezuela be understood within the context of the global food crisis, which has caused world food reserves to drop to a 30-year low, according to the director of the World Food Program Josette Sheeran.

President Chávez said Thursday that the method for achieving its goals is “socialism,” which is “the future.” He pointed out that the government has nationalized large, idle estates and turned them into Socialist Production Units (UPS) “with their own economic model” based on “social property, which is not private property, it is for everyone.”

Now, it is the workers’ responsibility to transform production from capitalist to socialist, the president said. He called for the creation of a “National Socialist Farmers Front” of agricultural workers, who “should possess a conscience of social duty and exercise this for the collective benefit.”

Reflecting on the future development of Venezuela, Chávez stressed that “we should move away from the oil-based production model. The future of the country is in the land, in the agricultural project, not in petroleum. Food production is the most important.”

ALBA Summit in Venezuela Responds to World Food Crisis and Bolivian Crisis

James Suggett, April 24th, Venezuelanalysis.com

Mérida, April 24, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez convened an extraordinary meeting of member nations of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) in Caracas early Wednesday morning to discuss the world food crisis and the political crisis in eastern Bolivia.

At the meeting, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, Bolivian President Evo Morales, Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage, and Chávez signed a series of accords to promote mutual agricultural development, create a joint food distribution network, and create a $100 million ALBA food security fund.

“The food crisis is the greatest demonstration of the historical failure of the capitalist model,” President Chávez declared.

Highlighting the most recent report by the United Nations World Food Program which called the food crisis a “silent Tsunami” and demanded an internationally coordinated response, Chávez said, “ALBA announces its willingness to assume responsibility, ALBA responds immediately… here we are.”

Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage commented that the crisis is part of an “unjust international economic order” in which “the logic is profit and not the satisfaction of peoples` needs.”

Lage further denounced the fact that the United States spends $500 billion per year on the Iraq War while the U.N. had to plea last month for $500 million donations in order to meet its emergency food quotas.

Social unrest has burgeoned in over thirty countries following an 80% increase in world food prices over the last three years, according to the World Bank. U.S. President George W. Bush authorized $200 million in global emergency food aid April 14th, while Venezuela, which has faced food shortages recently, sent 364 tons of meat, chicken, ham, milk, lentils, olive oil, and vegetables to its neighbor Haiti, which has experienced violent riots over rising food costs.

President Morales affirmed Wednesday that “it is the responsibility of presidents to act in concert to guarantee the food security of our peoples.”

Morales also criticized the diversion of farmland for the production of biofuels, which is widely recognized to have contributed to rising food prices, in a speech at the inauguration of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York Monday.

“If we do not bring an end to the capitalist system, it will be impossible to save the Earth,” Morales concluded.

The agricultural development agreement signed by ALBA nations Wednesday will focus on rice, corn, oil for human consumption, beans, beef, and milk, and the improvement of watering systems. To avoid price speculation by private intermediaries, the heads of state agreed to create a public food distribution network with regulated prices. To fund these projects, the presidents agreed to create a $100 million fund in the Bank of ALBA, which is still in formation.

The four leaders also signed a joint statement Wednesday, expressing solidarity with Bolivia, where there is a secessionist movement led by elite landowners in the natural resource-rich lowland Bolivian provinces of Santa Cruz, Tarija, Beni, and Pando.

ALBA countries pledged “unrestricted support for the process of sovereign and democratic changes” in Bolivia, and harshly denounced the separatist movement, calling it a “frank violation of the constitution and Bolivian laws.”

The declaration was read publicly by Vice President Lage and advocated open dialogue to solve the crisis in Bolivia. It rejected foreign interference, but at the same time called on the international community to “act quickly and decisively in solidarity with the people and the government of Bolivia to consolidate political, economic, and social stability in the region.”

Chávez made clear his suspicion that the “empire wants to halt South American integration and they have chosen, now, Bolivia as a target [because] they do not want the grand fatherland of Latin America and the Caribbean to be born.”

In February it was revealed that the U.S. Embassy in Bolivia had pressured Peace Corps volunteers and Fulbright scholars to spy on the activity of Cubans and Venezuelans working in Bolivia. A report by Bolivia-based independent journalist Ben Dangl the same month revealed evidence that the U.S. is channeling funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to the secessionist groups.

In New York Monday, Morales said the separatist referendum planned for May 4th was “a bridge point for the Empire here in Bolivia disguised by the euphemism of autonomy.”

Morales also asked for international support to end what he called “slavery” in Bolivia, following recent denunciations by sugar cane laborers on large estates in the Santa Cruz province that over 8,000 children work in the fields without pay.

Chávez, whose administration has redistributed over 2 million hectares (4.94 million acres) of mostly state owned land and some from large estates and increased government financing for agricultural production by 728% over the past three years, proposed Wednesday that Bolivian agricultural development be a priority of ALBA, “with the permission and the pardon of Nicaragua, which is also on the priority list.”

He also said ALBA countries are lucky to have responded so quickly to the present food crisis, but are now “obligated to amplify, make more dynamic and profound” these regional food security initiatives.

ALBA is a fair trade block created by Cuba and Venezuela in 2005 as an alternative to the Free Trade Agreement for the Americas (FTAA) promoted by the U.S. government. Since then, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Dominica have joined the block.

VIO: Venezuela and the Environment, Can an Oil Country Go Green?

Venezuela Information Office, April 4

Venezuela is best known for being a major oil producer – the world's fifth-largest, and with reserves of crude larger than those of any other nation outside the Middle East. Few are aware, though, that it also boasts a level of biodiversity that is unmatched in most other parts of the world.

Venezuela, a country of 26 million people that is about twice the size of California, ranks 10th on the global stage for its level of biodiversity. This fact would suggest that the environment ought to form a vital part of the national agenda. However, until Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez was elected in 1999, no Venezuelan head of state had ever addressed the issue.

Shortly after President Chávez entered the executive office, Venezuela developed a new constitution which includes the country’s very first environmental protection policies. In an entire chapter of the 1999 Constitution dedicated to the environment, sustainable development is established as a national mandate. This goal of creating a model of sustainable development to address the excesses of capitalism is based on the principle that natural resources are essential for development, and must be used in a rational way that maintains the ecological equilibrium.

The 1999 Constitution of Venezuela also recognizes that eliminating poverty and raising the standard of living for all Venezuelans requires a healthy and protected environment. For these reasons, the right of individuals to a clean environment is given the same inalienable status in Venezuela’s constitutional framework as are the right to life, health and education. The constitution also stipulates that environmental protections must be developed in cooperation with local communities and civic groups. The new laws also require environmental education at all levels of schooling in Venezuela.

Now, for the first time, Venezuela is investing in and implementing environmentally-friendly models of growth. One example is the decision made in 2005 by the Chávez administration and Venezuelan oil company PDVSA to eliminate lead-based gasoline. Since then, PDVSA has begun recuperating green areas, reducing emissions, and cleaning up rivers and lakes.

A clear sign of progress came in 2007, when President Chávez proudly announced: “You should all know that the gasoline produced in Venezuela is now ‘green’ gasoline, we don’t use lead anymore.”[1] That same year, a presidential decree banned the opening of new coal mines in the state of Zulia, and expansions of the Guasare and Paso Diablo mines were rejected.[2]

THE GREEN REVOLUTION

With 43 national parks and 36 natural monuments, Venezuela has the largest proportion of protected lands in all of Latin America. Just over 55 percent of its territory is protected. A similar portion of the country -- about half of national lands – is covered by forests and jungles. Venezuela is home about 20,000 species of plants and 5,711 types of animals, including birds, reptiles, mammals, amphibians, and fish.

These very high levels of biodiversity make environmental protection a critical issue. Due to changes in the last decade, environmental policy in Venezuela is now crafted through increased consultation with local communities who help identify environmental challenges and indicate the best use of local natural resources. A number of mechanisms for citizen participation have emerged, such as Water and Energy Committees, Conservation Committees, and farming cooperatives.

Venezuela has also signed 14 international conventions on environmental protection and sustainable development, while taking steps to protect and preserve the country’s domestic natural wealth. 2004,Venezuela ratified the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and supported special measures applying to developing countries.

Misión Arbol (Tree Mission)

One of the most noteworthy and productive efforts so far, Mision Arbol, is combating deforestation by protecting river basins and promoting the sustainable use of Venezuela’s forests through collaboration with local communities.

Nearly 2,000 reforestation projects have been completed by citizens who have organized themselves into Conservation Committees. According to Misión Arbol statistics, 2,330 of these committees have been established nationwide, resulting in the planting of 33 million forest and fruit plants. In 2006 and 2007 alone, 13,524 hectares of land were reforested.

Misión Energía (Energy Mission)

Most of Venezuela’s population is concentrated in the many cities that dot the northern coastal area of the country, while the interior is taken up by vast, grassy plains and thick jungles. The cities use most of the energy and generate the bulk of pollution. Nonetheless, Venezuela’s “energy revolution” is touching all parts of the country, not just urban areas.[3] New programs creating eco-friendly housing using building materials derived from waste generated during oil production have plans to build 60,000 “petrocasas.” The first such community was inaugurated in the state of Carabobo on March 30, 2008. Initiatives like the “petrocasas” bring economic development to low-income areas while avoiding taking a high toll on the environment.

Though over 70 percent of Venezuela’s electricity comes from hydroelectric plants that produce very little pollution, efforts are still being made to reduce the country’s carbon output. To that end, Venezuela has begun replacing all incandescent light bulbs throughout the nation with energy-saving bulbs that last longer. The program aims to replace 52 million bulbs during its first phase.

President Chávez has also announced plans for a windmill farm to generate electricity on the Caribbean coast and is exploring more uses for cleaner-burning natural gas and ways to reduce the need for oil-fired power plants.[4]

Clean and Potable Water

Access to clean drinking water has also been a major issue for much of Venezuela’s population. However, this problem is beginning to be addressed through the recent construction of aqueducts, dams, pipes, and reservoirs. In 2006, two new aqueducts were built in different areas of the country, 65 miles of pipes were laid to connect water storage areas, and maintenance work was completed on 45 percent of Venezuela’s 85 reservoirs.

Venezuela also initiated a process to help keep its rivers, lakes, and beaches clean through the construction of sewage treatment plants. Among the most ambitious projects is the restoration of the Guaire River, which serves as the main sewage disposal location for the city of Caracas. This long-term project will extend over about a decade, and includes the reforestation of shorelines, relocation of housing settlements, installation of sewage collectors, and construction of treatment plants along the tributaries of the river.

CONCLUSION

Although in the past it was difficult to evaluate Venezuela’s environmental policy due to the fact that oil production dominates the economy, government attitudes on the issue have become clarified in recent years. In fact, they have taken a marked turn. Adherence to international standards and efforts to reduce energy consumption, lessen pollution, and combat deforestation indicate an increased respect for the environment on the part of the Chávez administration. President Chávez has himself made this position clear, saying: “Venezuela is one of the countries that least contaminates the environment, but nevertheless we want to give an example and be at the vanguard.”[5]

The Venezuela Information Office is dedicated to informing the American public about contemporary Venezuela, and receives its funding from the government of Venezuela. Further information is available from the FARA office of the Department of Justice in Washington, DC.

[1] “Venezuela’s Green Agenda,” by Eva Golinger, Venezuelanalysis, February 27, 2007. http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2244

[2] “The Venezuelan Minister of the Environment prohibits the opening of new coal mines in the state of Zulia,” Environmental Collectives, March 21, 2007.

[3] “Chavez Announces $3 Billion for Venezuela’s ‘Energy Revolution,’ By Chris Carlson, Venezuelanalysis, March 31, 2008. http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3310

[4] “Chavez Takes Up Energy Conservation,” by Ian James, Associated Press, February 4, 2007.

[5] Ibid.

LATIN AMERICA: Reconciling Oil and the Environment

Humberto Márquez, April 19, IPS

CARACAS, Apr 19 (Tierramérica) - Years of public scrutiny, ever-newer technologies, more government regulations, notions of corporate responsibility and the market-driven need for greater efficiency are all factors behind improvements in the environmental policies of Latin America's petroleum industry.

"Our line makes it incompatible to exploit the underground riches as long as above ground people are living in poverty," says Juan Bravo, manager of the environmental wing of Venezuela's state-run oil company PDVSA in the Orinoco belt in the southeast.

For decades, oil and natural gas exploitation in Venezuela polluted fields, rivers, lakes and cities, and fostered the growth of poor settlements around the installations where the country’s oil wealth was produced.

But since the industry was nationalised in 1976, no fossil fuel deal has been approved without including projects for social improvement and environmental preservation. In laying a natural gas pipeline between northern Colombia and northern Venezuela, PDVSA spent 15 million of the original 150 million dollar investment on community development programmes in the areas the pipeline crossed.

In the Orinoco belt, an area of around 55,000 square kilometres holding an estimated 1.2 trillion barrels of extra heavy crude, at least one-fifth of which is believed to be recoverable, the PDVSA and some 30 foreign corporate partners pump half a million barrels per day.

"To a large degree, the environmental achievements are due to the new codes of conduct for global energy companies. They don't enter into any deal without seeing the state of the land and without conducting environmental hearings," Venezuelan petroleum engineer Diego González told Tierramérica.
For example, unlike the conventional oil fields in eastern Venezuela, cluttered with thousands of vertical oil pumps, oil is now extracted horizontally: when the drill reaches the level of the petroleum deposit underground, submergible pumps draw out the crude from various points, without altering the surface landscape, González explained.

In Brazil, the state oil giant Petrobras "conducts monitoring projects that evaluate the environment before implementing the drilling or production efforts," particularly in the Atlantic Campos Basin, northeast of Rio de Janeiro, the company said in a written statement to Tierramérica.

The studies "identify restrictions for the location of the units (drills and pipelines) where there are important ecosystems, like deep-water coral reefs, in order to propose alternatives with fewer environmental impacts. Furthermore, all effluents are monitored, such as the water used in production, sanitation effluents, rubble and fluids from drilling," stated Petrobras.

In Ecuador, heavy environmental damage has been caused in the Amazon region by ChevronTexaco over a quarter century, which could mean compensation payouts of seven to 16 billion dollars, the equivalent of the corporation’s annual earnings, according to experts in Ecuador.

The pollution, caused by more than 600 petroleum waste pits, triggered the emergence of a vast ecological movement with international support to fight oil drilling in the Amazon's Ishpingo, Tambococha and Tiputini fields -- in which Brazil's Petrobras is also interested -- in order to protect areas of the National Yasuní Park.

"Cases like Brazil and Ecuador tend towards efforts to avoid oil spills, for which technology is constantly being improved. In part, we owe this to the start of production in the North Sea more than 30 years ago," González told Tierramérica.

In contrast to the large-scale oil exploitations that in Mexico, Venezuela, the Persian Gulf or the former Soviet Union preceded environmental concerns and legislation, those of Britain and Norway in the North Sea started in the 1970s and had to heed strict environmental standards.

In addition, to make petroleum production profitable in that area and to avoid wasting even one barrel, the companies had to develop safe and modern technologies, which regulators in other countries then began to require as well.

Oil spills continue to be a headache for companies like the state-run Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), which faces a serious decline in its oil fields and which spends one percent of its 17 billion dollar budget on environmental matters.

Of the 24,000 barrels of oil that Pemex spills on average each year, one-third are the result of illegal tapping of its pipelines, according to the company. Environmental groups identify Pemex as the most heavily polluting company in Mexico, responsible for 57 percent of the country's environmental emergencies.

In the company's code of conduct, the first item is "to respect and improve the environment", and its 155,000 employees are prohibited from "considering production more important than ecological balance."

Venezuela's PDVSA drew up management plans for the 28 blocks into which the 21,000 square kilometres of the currently exploited portion of the Orinoco belt are divided.

New maps and recognition of areas "allow decisions about the best sites and routes for the installations, roads or pipelines, but also for work as a project with each field, beginning with reforestation to capture carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas), while oil activity continues," said PDVSA's Bravo.

González noted that "the storage of crude no longer brings problems, because each tank or pump station has to have a walled-in space to contain spills equivalent to one-and-a-half times its storage capacity."

But the production of heavy crude in the Orinoco belt to convert it into lighter synthetics "generates new environmental problems because they have a high content of sulphur and metals, which must be stored or transported for sale, but whose markets aren't as easy to reach as the oil markets," he said.

The Orinoco belt's daily output is 600,000 barrels -- one-fifth of Venezuela’s total -- and each day produces 1,600 tonnes of residual sulphur and 14,500 tonnes of petroleum coke.

The coke is an input for the steel industry and is sold within Venezuela, while the sulphur derivatives are exported for use in fertiliser, agrochemicals, vulcanised rubber, dyes, etc. But storage and transport have their own financial and environmental costs.

"If the aspirations of this government are achieved, of producing (in the belt) up to four million barrels of crude a day, it would leave more than 10,000 tonnes of sulphur and almost 100,000 of coke per day," said González.

PDVSA invited companies from Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Iran, Russia, Spain and Uruguay to help certify that 236,000 billion barrels of crude are extractable, which would mean Venezuela holds the largest oil reserves on the planet.

(*Additional reporting by Mario Osava in Brazil, Kintto Lucas in Ecuador and Diego Cevallos in Mexico. Originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.)