Usar p⁄gs xvii-134 - ResearchGate

Limitations:• There is no standard cartographic base map that can be used to accurately locate concessionboundaries. The most recent base map is from 1987 and contains various errors.• Many concessions have been established without defining geographic coordinates. In these cases,concession boundaries are identified by incidental, non-geographic points (e.g. a road or a house).Concession boundaries are approximate.• Our base layer for rivers was coarser than our data for logging concessions. We adjusted concessionboundaries to fit rivers and the international border of Venezuela, which resulted in changes in the areaof some concessions, the Imataca Forest Reserve, and the forest lots. For this reason, the area of someforest lots and the Imataca Forest Reserve may vary from official statistics. At the most, our statisticsvary by 10% from official figures.• The database produced for this study does not include reliable data regarding the final destination ofsawmill products or roundwood due to our inability to collect these data.• The criteria used by the Ministry of Environment to define volume and number of trees to be cut eachyear are not clearly defined. It appears that one criterium for harvesting is the number of parent trees.• There are no reliable data on the area of forest or the number of trees affected by skidding trails.Likewise there are no data on the area of forest cut to establish log yards.• Mitigation of environmental impacts from logging is not well incorporated in management andcutting plans. For example, there is no information on the effects of logging on the biodiversity of thesurrounding ecosystem incorporated in either the management or cutting plans.Venezuela’s Gold and Diamond Production Compared toOther Major Producers, 1999 (Figure 19)CountryGold (kg)Australia 302,580Brazil 40,900Canada 158,275China 170,000United States 341,000Guyana 13,500Venezuela 5,946CountryDiamonds (‘000 carats)Botswana 20,000Brazil 900D.R. Congo 18,000Russia 23,000South Africa 10,000Venezuela 95Sources: US Geological Survey, US Geological Survey Minerals Yearbook(Washington, DC: USGS, 1999); MEM, Dirección de Planificación y EconomíaMinera, Anuario Estadístico Minero (MEM: Caracas, Venezuela, 1999).106