With the oil and natural gas industry, the environmental impacts are harder to predict. Spills — of which there were at least 86 last year — have become more frequent as state-owned oil and gas company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) abandons basic maintenance of its infrastructure. It’s not only the amount of production that will determine the frequency of future spills, but also government mismanagement, according to the Observatory of Political Ecology of Venezuela (OEP).
“Eliminating sanctions wouldn’t necessarily improve PDVSA’s environmental performance,” OEP’s Emiliano Teran explained, saying that corruption and negligence need to be addressed regardless of the economic context.
Lifting sanctions might boost Venezuela’s oil and gas output and help Venezuela’s economy, but that doesn’t mean that PDVSA will do a better job of fixing pipes and replacing worn-down tanks. It also doesn’t mean it will release oil spill data and studies of the spills’ ecological impact, which would allow scientists to assess next steps for conservation efforts. That data has been hidden by the government for years.
The Maduro regime has developed a reputation for reneging on promises it’s made at the international negotiation table. Two weeks ago, its supreme court suspended the results of the opposition party’s primary, putting the longevity of the lifted sanctions at risk. More discussion was expected at a meeting between Latin American leaders and Joe Biden’s administration this month during the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity summit. However, nothing specific was said about it in the official summit declaration.
Banner image: Canaima National Park in Venezuela. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia.
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Amazon Rainforest, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Environmental Politics, Forests, Gas, Gold Mining, Governance, Illegal Mining, Indigenous Peoples, Mining, Natural Gas, Oil, Oil Drilling, Oil Spills, Protected Areas, Rainforest Deforestation, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforest Mining, Rainforests, Tropical Forests
Latin America, South America, Venezuela
Source link : https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/lifted-sanctions-on-gold-oil-could-slow-conservation-efforts-in-venezuela/
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Publish date : 2023-11-08 03:00:00
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