Venezuela - Context and Land Governance

^{Sea in Venezuela, photo by Paramita, Flickr, CC BY 2.0} 

In 2019 the annualized inflation was 39,113%⁴. The country's economic crisis has had a strong impact on the population. More than 5 million Venezuelans have left the country since 2015.⁵. In 2020 the population was more than 28 million people⁶. Its ethnic composition is distributed, according to figures and categories included in the 2011 Population Census, as 51% brown, 43% white, 2.8% black, 2.7% % indigenous, 0.7% Afro-descendants and 1.2% others⁷.

The contrasts are also reflected in Venezuela's political polarization. After the fall in oil prices in 1983 and the implementation of structural adjustment measures in the 1980s and 1990s to face the foreign debt crisis, in 1999 the Bolivarian Revolution, initiated by President Hugo Chávez and continued by the current government of Nicolás Maduro, implied a paradigm shift based on the rejection of capitalism and the centralization of power in the State.

Land governance in the last two decades is a true reflection of this change. Fundamentally, it has consisted of large expropriations of land and State control in its management under the principles of the social function of land, food security of the population and the idea that land is for those who work it. Despite government policies to guarantee food security for Venezuelans, 79.3% do not have the means to cover the food basket according to the Living Conditions Survey 2019-2020⁸. According to the same survey, in 2020 only 3% of households are free from food insecurity. Recently, an unsustainable economic situation is turning government decisions towards the search for investors and the return of some expropriations. The State maintains control over oil and minerals.

While the environment is no stranger to this reality due to the environmental impact of illegal activities such as mining, for example, Venezuela is also synonymous with biodiversity. The country ranks ninth in the world in diversity of animals, plants and ecosystems, and seventh in birds. Its 912,050 km2⁹. surface area is home to more than 117,000 recorded species that inhabit habitats ranging from the Andes mountains, to the Amazon jungle, the plains of the Llanos and the Caribbean and Atlantic coasts ¹⁰.

Land legislation

The Venezuelan Constitution of 1999 guarantees the right to property, which must be for purposes of public utility or general interest. Otherwise, it may be expropriated by the State by means of a final judgment and fair compensation (Art. 115).

The policy of land expropriation by the Chávez and Maduro governments has been described as a violation of the right to property and of not being carried out with due compensation as dictated by the Constitution. Laws passed in recent years have facilitated the government's actions to carry out what is known as "express expropriations"¹¹. For example, the Agri-Food Security and Sovereignty Law of 2008 makes possible the forced acquisition of goods related to the sector without the need to obtain authorization from the National Assembly¹². And the Law for the Defense of the People in the Access to Goods and Services allows the Executive to declare all goods of public utility under the condition that they are considered essential and indispensable to guarantee the right to life and security of the State¹³.

The main land law is the Land and Agrarian Development Law of 2001, partially amended in 2010. This law is motivated by the redistribution of idle or vacant land and the increase of land productivity in order to guarantee agrifood security¹⁴. With this objective in mind, the law introduces elements such as the requirement of productivity as a condition for maintaining agrarian property, and seeks to eliminate types of tenure considered contrary to these purposes. For example, both the Venezuelan land legislation and the Venezuelan Constitution are opposed to latifundia as being contrary to the social interest (Constitution, Art. 307). Latifundia is understood as the extension of land that exceeds the average occupancy of the region or does not reach a suitable yield of 80%¹⁵. The Land Law also seeks to eliminate outsourcing, considering it contrary to justice, equality, the general interest and social peace in the countryside (Art. 1)¹⁶. Outsourcing is understood to mean the form of exploitation of land for agricultural use that delegates or grants to a third party the right of usufruct over it or the mandate to work it through the constitution of companies, leases, commodatums, assignment of rights, joint ownership, sharecropping, usufruct or any other form (Art. 7). The principle on which this position is based is that "the land is for those who work it". Thus, this law prioritizes satisfying the needs of the population over the expectations of the market or enrichment.

According to some critics, the Law of Lands and Agrarian Development violates constitutional provisions on the right to property and expands the power of the State by granting it the capacity to directly assume the production, industrialization, distribution, exchange and commercialization of agricultural production¹⁷. This is justified by the association of agricultural production with the principle of food security of Venezuelans, which in turn is developed on the basis of food sovereignty, and the fair distribution of goods. The principle of food sovereignty implies the development and privilege of domestic agricultural production, considered fundamental for the economic and social development of the nation (Art. 305 of the Constitution).

The Land Law also recognizes the right to land adjudication. Specifically, the agricultural lands of the National Land Institute (INTI) may be subject to adjudication, giving the right of agrarian property to the recipient of the land. The agrarian property right allows the peasant to use, enjoy and perceive the fruits of the land, it is transferred by inheritance to the legal successors, but cannot be subject to alienation (Art. 12). Among the preferential beneficiaries of the adjudication of land are the persons who have been working for an uninterrupted period of more than three years on private land under the tertiarization regime when these were expropriated by INTI, as well as the historical occupants of the land who work under conditions of precarious occupation.

Urban settlements are regulated by the Special Law for the Integral Regulation of Land Tenure of Popular Urban Settlements of 2006¹⁸. Said law recognizes the right of preference in case of sale to the municipality to transfer the property that a titleholder wants to alienate to a third party to the respective community for purposes of collective interest and use (Art. 19). If the municipality does not respond to the interested party within 15 working days after receiving the offer, the right of first refusal is waived.

Land tenure

In Venezuela there are the following types of land tenure: private property, lease, sharecropping, medianería, pisatario or occupation¹⁹. The sharecroppers give the landowner a part of the harvest produced by them, which in the case of medianería is half. Pisatarios temporarily use public or private lands without paying in money or in kind to the landowners for their use. Illegal occupation can be consolidated or unconsolidated depending on how long it lasts.

According to the Law of Lands and Agrarian Development, private lands must be subject to the production needs of foodstuffs in accordance with the agrifood security plans of the Executive (Art. 2). The Law guarantees the permanence of peasants in the private lands they work, even if they do not own them, in the form of a contract or business with the owner for a minimum of three years (Art. 14).

Land with a vocation for agrarian use must be registered in the National Agrarian Registry under the National Land Institute²⁰. The registration cannot be made if the polygon falls on a body of water, river, lake or lagoon, or if the property is located within Natural Protected Areas (ANAPRO) or in lands of indigenous peoples and communities. In case it is located in Areas Under Special Administration Regime (ABRAE) it may be done with observations²¹.

Collective land rights

The Venezuelan Constitution recognizes the indigenous peoples' original rights over the lands they ancestrally and traditionally occupy and which are necessary to develop and guarantee their ways of life. These lands are inalienable, imprescriptible, non-seizable and non-transferable (Art. 119)²². The Constitution establishes that the use of natural resources shall be made without harming the integrity of indigenous peoples and in accordance with prior information and consultation with the indigenous communities (Art. 120).

Indigenous lands are regulated by the Organic Law of Indigenous Peoples and Communities of 2005²³. According to this Law, the Executive, with indigenous participation, is responsible for the demarcation of indigenous lands, taking into account ethnological, ecological, geographical, historical realities and indigenous toponymy (Art. 23). Indigenous lands may not be classified as uncultivated, idle or uncultivated for the purpose of being affected or for adjudication to third parties, nor may the waters they use (Art. 26).

Both the Indigenous Peoples Law (Art. 11) and the Forestry Law (Art. 26) recognize the right of indigenous peoples to prior consultation in natural resource use activities or development projects to be carried out on indigenous lands. The 2013 Forestry Law establishes that forestry development must respect the cultural diversity and plurality of peoples (Art. 2)²⁴. Subsoil resources are the property of the State.

Rights and Resources Initiative estimates that, in 2020, the area over which indigenous peoples have their rights recognized is 3.2% of the national total, and in 44% of the area indigenous rights are not legally recognized²⁵. Indigenous peoples in Venezuela continue to struggle to defend their lands in the absence of State protection. In the states of Amazonas and Bolivar, for example, Pemón, Piaora, Ye'kwana and Sanemá communities have organized themselves into a "civil resistance corps" to protect themselves from illegal miners and invaders of their territories linked to guerrillas and organized crime, including members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)²⁶.

The State does not recognize the ownership of ancestral lands of Venezuelan Afro-descendants. In spite of the vulnerability of these communities in this regard, land rights have not been claimed as in the indigenous case. The lack of social mobilization in this respect is described by some authors as "political passivity", perhaps due to the detachment of these communities from their land, as could be demonstrated by the abandonment of small-scale agriculture, the sale of land, the adoption of an urban lifestyle and the invasion of land by people from outside the communities²⁷.

^{Pico Bolívar, photo by David Hernández, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0}

Land use trends

More than half of Venezuela's territory, 52.4% in 2020, is forest area²⁸. This percentage has progressively decreased since 1990 when it was 59%. According to Global Forest Watch, since 2000 Venezuela's tree cover has decreased by 4.1%, mainly in Bolivar but also in Zulia, Monagas, Amazonas and Anzoátegui²⁹. Some of the causes of this decrease are deforestation and fires. No official data on deforestation has been found but according to the organization Provita, between 2010 and 2015, 2,822,000 hectares were deforested³⁰. Studies conducted by Provita indicate that deforestation was the cause of the loss of 1% of forest cover in the Venezuelan Amazon from 2000 to 2020³¹. The main causes of deforestation are agriculture and mining. Agricultural use is the most widespread, occupying 2.3% of the Amazon, although, according to Provita, its annual expansion has been reduced in the last ten years. At the same time, the expansion of agricultural land has not necessarily led to an increase in agricultural production due to the abandonment of the land after a few years. Mining occupies a small area in the Amazon (0.1%), although its expansion has doubled between 2000 and 2020. The state most affected by both activities is Bolivar, which concentrates 89.4% of agricultural activity and 97% of mining in the Venezuelan Amazon³². In relation to fires, according to information from Global Forest Watch, between May 24, 2021 and May 16, 2022, 12,045 fire alerts were recorded, considering only high confidence alerts³³. This is considered a normal number compared to previous years.

24.4% of Venezuela is agricultural land, a percentage that has remained practically unchanged since the early 1990s³⁴. The use of land for agricultural purposes in Venezuela is limited by the uses recognized under the Land Law. The following are not considered as uses in accordance with the law: 1) the use of land contrary to national development and food security plans; agricultural activities contrary to those corresponding to the soil classification established for each category; 3) land used through tertiarization; 4) land within the area of influence of strategic agro-productive or agro-ecological projects developed by the Executive, when its use is contrary to the objectives of the respective project (Art. 35). The type of crops is also determined by the items established by the State as necessary to satisfy food security. At the time of the approval of the Land Law in 2001, the agrifood priorities established by the State were aimed at the production of animal protein (meat, milk and eggs), oilseed crops and cereals. The government's plans also included promoting corn production, increasing rice consumption and decreasing wheat consumption³⁵. In 2020, the crops with the highest production were sugarcane (2,619,188 tons), corn (1,552,359 t), bananas (884,207 t), plantains and others (720,998 t) and palm kernel oil (503,228 t), representing 53.4% of total national production³⁶. The crops that occupy the largest land area are corn (444,627 ha), green coffee (162,807 ha) and paddy rice (122,368 ha)³⁷.

In terms of livestock, in 2020 there were 10,842,004 cattle, with the states of Zulia and Apure having the largest populations³⁸. According to several recent studies, the concern for protein production and distribution continues twenty years later. The average meat consumption per year is 7 kilos per person³⁹. One of the reasons for this is the decrease in animal production. Cattle production, for example, fell 44% in the last 20 years⁴⁰. It is estimated that in recent years the number of pork producers has decreased by 50%⁴¹. The pork industry is now considered to produce only 20% of its capacity⁴². In 2019 the average pork consumption was 1.3 kilos per person⁴³. The economic difficulties in the country, expressed in the shortage of medicines for animals and the decrease in the citizen's purchasing power due to hyperinflation, contribute to this general decline in livestock farming ⁴⁴.

A significant part of the Venezuelan surface (68.4%) has been decreed by the Venezuelan State as Areas Under Special Administration Regime (ABRAE) according to the Organic Law of Land Management of 1983⁴⁵. These areas occupy almost 96,900,000 hectares including land and water surface⁴⁶. ABRAE are areas that due to their geographic, landscape, geostrategic, topographic or sociocultural characteristics receive special treatment in order to defend, conserve or improve them. These areas are classified into 24 different categories, including national parks, natural monuments, wildlife refuges, wildlife reserves, wildlife sanctuaries and biosphere reserves. Not all ABRAEs are for the conservation of the natural environment and biodiversity; some have production and strategic purposes and respond to urban, industrial, and agricultural interests⁴⁷.

The urban area in Venezuela occupies 34,404 km2 , a number that has remained unchanged since at least 1990⁴⁸. The urban population grew significantly from 1960 to 2001, coinciding with the oil boom, from 62% to 88%⁴⁹. Since then it has remained stable.

^{The Venezuelan plains, photo by Fernando Flores, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0}

Investments in land

The Venezuelan government's investment interests are primarily focused on the oil sector. Despite possessing one of the largest reserves in the world, Venezuela's state-owned oil industry is operating well below capacity due to insufficient investment⁵⁰. Venezuela would need USD 58 billion in investments, both Venezuelan and foreign, to revive crude oil production to 1998 levels. The call for investors embodied in Petróleos de Venezuela's 2021 "Investment Opportunities" document comes at a time when the government is seeking to restore relations with the private sector and overcome the country's economic crisis after years of state-controlled policies.

In recent years, the Venezuelan State has also invested in the mining sector, focusing on iron, coal, bauxite, coltan, granite, diamond, quartz and gold. After the oil boom, the mining sector was reactivated in 2015 with a legislative reform that reserves to the State the activities of exploration and exploitation of gold and other strategic minerals under the Mining Development Plan 2016-2018⁵¹. Thus, the State maintains national sovereignty over mining resources⁵². The mining engine was installed in the Arco Minero del Orinoco, whose extension is 111,843 km2, of which 5% was planned for mining production⁵³. In 2016, the Arco Minero del Orinoco was named as a National Strategic Development Zone. This naming has not been without controversy since, despite being promoted by the government as a place to mine legally and safely and respecting human and environmental rights, illegal mining has expanded in the area, according to some organizations, under the protection of the governmen⁵⁴. In addition to deforestation, illegal mining is causing other environmental problems such as water contamination due to the mercury used for gold extraction, as well as violence and threats against local communities ⁵⁵.

At the agrarian level, with the aim of creating incentives, adequate conditions and protection for production, the Venezuelan government re-launched in 2020 the Gran Misión Agrovenezuela, approved in 2014 with Decree 1409, to become constitutional law⁵⁶. The project has nine work vertices: 1) research and development, 2) territoriality, 3) production, 4) distribution, 5) exports, 6) financing, 7) monitoring and control, 8) organization of the Popular Power and 9) security and defense. In relation to financing, the idea is to strengthen it through agricultural exchanges with private participation. Joint planning of the productive sectors by vertex, items and regions is considered key, in order to orchestrate a production plan under the same platform ⁵⁷.

^{View from Merida Cable Car, photo by David Hernández, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0}

Land acquisitions

Since the Bolivarian Revolution of Hugo Chavez, land acquisition in Venezuela has been rather practiced by the government through large-scale expropriation of land for distribution to the less favored and for the development of state agricultural projects. The driving force behind this policy is that the abusive landowners owned land that did not belong to them and that such land belongs to the peasants to compensate for decades of injustice. The expropriated lands are idle lands or lands for which there is no proof of legitimate ownership since 1830⁵⁸. According to data from the Venezuelan Confederation of Agricultural Producers Associations (Fedeagro), 5 million hectares have been expropriated in the last years⁵⁹. Fedeagro also states that production has been paralyzed in 70% due to the lack of fuel.

Some critical voices argue that the expropriation of land by the Chávez and Maduro governments (in office since 2013) has undermined the right to private property, and that its distribution has been used politically to establish patronage relations with those who support the government and to punish those who oppose it⁶⁰. They also argue that part of what caused the collapse of property rights in Venezuela is land grabbing and state ownership of Venezuela's main oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela, and mining resources⁶¹.

In April 2022, in a context of economic crisis of great dimensions, the Maduro government accelerated the return, without economic compensation, of assets expropriated during the Chávez government, among which are farms and lands linked to agricultural production, as well as companies, hotels and industries⁶². Such reaction came after the international arbitration ordered Venezuela in March to compensate with 1.4 billion Euros to an agricultural company⁶³.

Women's land rights

The majority of the Venezuelan female population is rural - in 2018 45.72% of 49.83%⁶⁴. In recent years, the agricultural sector has been feminized and aged due to the migration of a high number of Venezuelans leaving as head of household adult women who act as grandmothers-mothers⁶⁵.

The 1999 Venezuelan Constitution is considered one of the most advanced in the region in terms of rural women's land rights⁶⁶. Rather than including special provisions for women, the recognition consists of equating men with women, which is reflected in the use of non-sexist language. Article 307 establishes that "peasants and other agricultural producers have the right to land ownership". The Land Law establishes as beneficiaries of the adjudication of land all Venezuelan men and women who have opted for rural work and agricultural production, although in its Article 14, it gives priority to Venezuelan women citizens who are heads of family and who are committed to work the land for the maintenance of their family group and to contribute to the development of their community and the Nation. Women citizens engaged in agricultural production will also be guaranteed a special pre- and post-natal food subsidy. Despite this preferential treatment for female heads of household, in 2007 only 13% of women were beneficiaries⁶⁷.

In relation to aid for rural women, the Plan for Gender Equality 2013-2019 includes as a line of action a communication campaign to promote the financing of productive projects for women's organizations in rural, peasant, indigenous and Afro-descendant areas⁶⁸. This Plan lacks an indicative budget for the use of resources to carry it out and to date there has been no accountability in this regard⁶⁹. Through the Women's Development Bank, from its creation in 2001 to 2019, 170,331 microcredits were approved, of which 22% are rural, urban and peri-urban agrarian, and 78% were for non-agricultural activities ⁷⁰.

Despite some progress, women's organizations consider that discrimination against women in general, and against rural and indigenous women in particular, continues to exist⁷¹. Specific complaints refer to the lack of sources of financing due to the decrease in governmental supply in this regard, and a deficient supply of productive inputs (fertilizers, machinery, seeds, etc.), training and technical assistance, social services, inflation and currency devaluation, among others. In particular, the lack of assistance to small producers is criticized. As indicated by one of the peasant women participating in a study on rural women, "we have not received piped water for almost, I think I lost count, four years (...) and gas arrives every two to three months"⁷².

Where to go?

Author's suggestions to learn more

Agricultural policies in recent years in Venezuela have been aimed at guaranteeing food security for the population. However, the recession in agricultural production makes this a difficult objective to achieve. Red Agroalimentaria de Venezuela makes an analysis of the situation in the report La situación agrícola de Venezuela, una aproximación al problema y líneas de acción para resolverlo en el corto plazo (The agricultural situation in Venezuela, an approach to the problem and lines of action to solve it in the short term) published in 2018⁷³. Like other countries in the region, Venezuela suffers from the deforestation of its forests. Carlos Pacheco, Inmaculada Aguado and Danilo Mollicone analyze, in a study entitled The causes of deforestation in Venezuela: a retrospective study, the main and underlying causes of deforestation from pre-Columbian times to 2011, the date of publication of the article⁷⁴. Affected by the country's oil wealth, mining is both a hope for a way out of the economic crisis and a threat to many of the inhabitants living near mining resources. A team of researchers from the Universidad de los Andes presents Panorama socioeconómico de la minería en Venezuela (1970-2014) y comparaciones entre periodos gubernamentales, published in 2018⁷⁵.

Timeline - milestones in land governance

1922 - Beginning of the oil boom

The discovery of oil on Venezuelan soil caused many peasants to leave the countryside to work in the oil fields or to migrate to the cities. Venezuela ceased to be an agricultural country and became an oil country.

1947 - New agricultural policy

The Corporación Venezolana de Fomento, in order to diversify the economy, is promoting an agricultural sector policy focused on production plans by item through loans to entrepreneurial producers. The exchange rate discouraged exports and redirected the attention of the agroexport sector to the domestic market ⁷⁶.

1960 - Agrarian Reform Law

This law sought to reactivate and attract the peasants who abandoned the Venezuelan countryside by promoting the equitable distribution of land and an adequate organization of credit and assistance to producers, and thus create a rural middle class of small and medium-sized commercial farmers.

1971 - Comprehensive Agricultural Development Program (PRIDA)

In an agricultural context divided between a booming business sector and a relatively stagnant peasant sector in danger of pauperization, PRIDA's objective was the comprehensive development of areas that had benefited from agrarian reform land allocations.

1980s-1990s - Structural adjustment policies

During the 1980s and early 1990s, structural adjustment policies were implemented to deal with the external debt crisis. This involved trade liberalization to control the fiscal deficit, contraction of public spending, price liberalization, reduction of tariffs and freezing of interest rates to stimulate private investment⁷⁷. This coincided with the crisis caused by the fall in oil prices in 1983.

1999 - Beginning of the Bolivarian Revolution

With the presidency of Hugo Chávez (1999-2013) came a paradigm shift that implied the rejection of capitalism and the centralization of power in the State. In relation to land, this implied large expropriations of land under the slogan that the land is for those who work it.

2010s - Hyperinflation

In 2014, inflation in Venezuela was 69%, the highest in the world. From this moment on it did not stop rising until it reached 800% in 2016, 4,000% in 2017, 1,698,488% in 2018 and 9,500% in 2019. This and the fall of the GDP to 40% are the symptoms of an unprecedented economic crisis that led to the migration abroad of millions of Venezuelans. In the countryside, it resulted in a reduction of agricultural production explained by low profitability, shortage of inputs at subsidized or regulated prices, lower investments due to uncertainty, controls, legal insecurity and lack of respect for private property⁷⁸.

References

[1] Expansion. Venezuela - Oil reserves.

[2] ENCOVI. Living Conditions Survey 2019-2020.

[3] ECLAC (2019). Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Preliminary Overview of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean.

[4] Ibid.

[5] International Organization for Migration (IOM). (2021). "New MPI-IOM report: Long-term policies, key to the integration of refugees and migrants from Venezuela".

[6] Datosmacro. Venezuela - Population.

[7] National Institute of Statistics (2014). XIV National Population and Housing Census. Resultados Total Nacional de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela.

[8] ENCOVI. Living Conditions Survey 2019-2020.

[9] World Bank (2018). Surface area (square kilometers) Venezuela.

[10] Vitalis. "Venezuela contributes 9% of the world's biodiversity".

[11] Juan Paullier (2011). "What is known about Chávez's expropriations". BBC.

[12] National Assembly (2008). Ley Orgánica de Seguridad y Soberanía Agroalimentaria.

[13] National Assembly (2010). Law for the Defense of Persons in the Access to Goods and Services.

[14] Edgar Jaimes, et. al. (2002). "Land ownership and agrifood security in Venezuela". Interciencia, vol. 27, no. 12.

[15] National Assembly (2010). Law of Partial Reform of the Law of Lands and Agrarian Development.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Yolanda Valery (2010). "Venezuela: Land Law reform approved". BBC Mundo.

[18] National Assembly (2006). Special Law for the Integral Regularization of Land Tenure of Popular Urban Settlements.

[19] National Assembly (2010). Law of Partial Reform of the Law of Lands and Agrarian Development.

[20] National LandInstitute (2018). Norms, Requirements and Procedure for Registration in the National Agrarian Registry. Ministry of the People's Power for Agriculture and Lands.

[21] Ibid.

[22] National Constituent Assembly (1999). Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

[23] National Assembly (2005). Ley Orgánica de Pueblos y Comunidades Indígenas.

[24] National Assembly (2013). Ley de Bosques.

[25] Rights and Resources Initiative (2020). Estimate of the area of land and territories of Indigenous Peoples, local communities and Afro-descendants where their rights have not been recognized.

[26] Joseph Poliszuk, María de los Ángeles Ramírez and María Antonieta Segovia (2022). "La Resistencia indígena se organiza en la selva venezolana" (Indigenous resistance organizes in the Venezuelan jungle). El País.

[27] Yara Altez Ortega. (2016). "Afrodescendencia, tierra y olvido en la costa central venezolana." Studies on Contemporary Cultures, vol. XXIII, no. 46.

[28] World Bank. Forest area (% of land area) Venezuela.

[29] Global Forest Watch. Venezuela.

[30] Venezuelan Human Rights Action Education Program (2020). "World Environment Day. Deforestation swallows Venezuela's forests".

[31] Rodrigo Lazo, et al. (2021). Land cover and land use in the Venezuelan Amazon. What are the main drivers of change? Provita.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Global Forest Watch. Venezuela.

[34] World Bank. Agricultural land (% of land area) Venezuela.

[35] Edgar Jaimes, et. al. (2002). Op. cit.

[36] Elm Axayacatl. (2022). "Most important crops in Venezuela".

[37] Ibid.

[38] Finanzas Digital (2021). "More than 10,800,00 head of cattle were in Venezuela in 2020, according to Invelecar".

[39] Elizabeth Ostos (2020). "Livestock production is bankrupt and Venezuelans consume barely 7 kilos of meat per year". Infobae.

[40] Ibid.

[41] RazasPorcinas (no year). "Drastic decline in pork production".

[42] Ibid.

[43] Ibid.

[44] Ibid.

[45] Ministry of People's Power for Ecosocialism, What is an ABRAE?

[46] Ibid.

[47] Rafael E. García Peña and María Isabel Silva Viera (2013). "Las ABRAE versus protected areas in Venezuela". Revista COPÉRNICO. no. 19.

[48] World Bank. Urban land area (square kilometers) - Venezuela.

[49] World Bank. Urban population (% of total) - Venezuela.

[50] Reuters (2021). "Venezuela seeks investors to restore oil production to 1998 levels, but will need US$ 58,000M". América Economía.

[51] Riguey Valladares (2017). "Socioeconomic panorama of mining in Venezuela (1970-2014) and comparisons between governmental periods." Revista Geográfica Venezolana, vol. 59, no. 2.

[52] People's Ministry of Ecological Mining Development. "Arco Minero del Orinoco (AMO): a responsible mining model".

[53] Ibid.

[54] SOS Orinoco.

[55] Karla Pérez Castilla (2019). "Venezuela among the countries with the highest deforestation in the world". El Nacional.

[56] Últimas Noticias (2020). "Gran Misión Agrovenezuela relaunched".

[57] Ibid.

[58] Associated Press in Caracas (2005). "Venezuela moves to seize thousands of hectares of 'idle' land from British peer". The Guardian.

[59] El Universal (2021). "Fedeagro: al menos 5 millones de hectáreas se mantienen bajo condición de expropiación".

[60] Michael Albertus (2015). "This land was your land". Foreign Policy.

[61] Andrés F. Guevara (2020). "The ghost of Venezuela". In Linda Van Tilburg. "Lessons from Venezuela: Implosion started with land grabs". BizNews.

[62] El Nacional (2022). "Gobierno de Nicolás Maduro acelerera la devolución de bienes expropiados".

[63] Florantonia Singer (2022). "Hugo Chávez's expropriations begin to cost Venezuela dearly". El País.

[64] Omaira Lozano. (2020). The Situation of Rural Women in Venezuela. Rural Women and Land Rights Latin America and the Caribbean.

[65] Omaira Lozano. (2020). Op. cit.

[66] Epsy Campbell Barr (coord.) (no year). Rural women, land and production: Ownership, access and control of land for women. Association for the development of Costa Rican black women.

[67] Ibid.

[68] Nicolás Maduro Moros, et. al. (2014). Plan for Gender Equality and Equity "Mamá Rosa" 2013-2019. Ministry of Popular Power for Women and Gender Equality.

[69] Omaira Lozano. (2020). Op. cit.

[70] Ibid.

[71] Ibid.

[72] Ibid.

[73] Briceño, G. (2018). The agricultural situation in Venezuela, an approach to the problem and lines of action to solve it in the short term. Red Agroalimentaria de Venezuela.

[74] Pacheco, C. E., Aguado, I. and Mollicone, D. (2011). "The causes of deforestation in Venezuela: a retrospective study".

[75] Valladares, R., et. al. (2018). "Socioeconomic overview of mining in Venezuela (1970-2014) and comparisons between governmental periods." Revista Geográfica Venezolana. Vol. 59. no. 2.

[76] Luis Llambi, Eliecer G. Arias and Gustavo Briceño (1994). Small agricultural production and rural poverty in Venezuela. Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research (IVIC). IICA. http://repiica.iica.int/docs/B1011e/B1011e.pdf

[77] Danilo Torres Reina. "Structural adjustment policies in Colombia and Venezuela during the 1980s and 1990s". Apuntes del Cenes. Vol. 39, no. 69.

[78] Leonardo Vera. (2018). "How to explain the Venezuelan economic catast