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The status of protection of almost half of the forests in the Guayana region is unclear.Map 5 shows protected areas allocated for natural resource uses (e.g., logging, hunting and watershedconservation). Many of Venezuela’s protected areas (ABRAE) overlap partially or totally withone another, an aspect recognized in article 17 of the Framework Law for Land Use Zoning.According to this law, “It is not considered incompatible to assign one or more types of protectedareas to the same land area, as long as these are compatible with one another.” However, it is notclear which category prevails in the case of overlap between protected areas with competing objectives(e.g., overlap between areas designated for natural resource use and those protected strictly forconservation purposes).FIGURE 4Degree of Forest Protection, Guayana RegionNote: Does not include forests not protected in IUCN I-VI. Thus protection categories for lowland forests add up to less than 100%.Source: GFW Venezuela, 2001. See Annex 1 for details.• Approximately half of all forests in the Guayana region have been allocated for naturalresource uses, specifically logging and hydrological services (see Figure 4).• Overlap between protected areas with competing objectives is particularly evident in theGuayana region. As can be seen in Figure 4, the degree of overlap between categories is mostnoticeable in the case of submontane and montane forests.• According to data underlying Map 6, approximately 4 million hectares of strictly protectedforest in the Guayana region overlap with areas designated for natural resource use. Thesemanagement categories are not necessarily compatible with one another, creating a degree ofuncertainty with respect to the legal protection of forest cover.• The legal status of the large blocks designated as natural monuments in the Guayana regionis also uncertain because their boundaries were not well defined when they were created(see Box 3). Taking into account overlap between protected areas and the uncertain status ofnatural monuments, the legal status of nearly half of the forests classified as strictly protectedin the Guayana region is subject to some degree of uncertainty. 2720