Maduro is betting on gold while his country is shipwrecked

Does gold equate to money? Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro certainly seems to believe that. After all other options have been exhausted and there is no more room on its paper currency to print any more zeros, Venezuela has clung to the idea that gold mining will likely be its answer to rescue itself from economic ruin. As a result, the country is now pushing into some protected areas in the Amazon to expand its gold mining operations. In fact, according to Bloomberg, the land area used for mining has "more than tripled" since March last year. In April of this year, additional new parcels were approved for mining, indicating further geographic expansion in the second half of 2021. The broken Venezuelan government is trying to formalize and band together around a gold industry that is largely illegal and best known for destroying natural resources across the country. In a move that will skyrocket the blood pressure of ESG advocates around the world, authorities are now supplying equipment and offering assistance in the hope that new gold will be sold to the government regardless of its environmental impact. While the number of mines in the country has decreased, this is due to the merging of operations. Mining area is now approximately 116,655 hectares, up from 33,926 hectares a year ago. Government gold purchases increased 15-fold from 2016 to 2018 to 9.7 tons. Venezuela remains paralyzed by US sanctions and reduced oil production, making gold an easy resource for President Nicolas Maduro to focus on. Maduro has already sold reserves to allies like Iran while fighting to have the country's gold bars shipped overseas for repatriation. By mining new gold, he now wants to "tap the exploding prices of the metal," said Bloomberg. Mining is now starting to affect national parks and protected areas. Tina Oliveira, Amazon Director of Wataniba, said: "The mining areas in the Venezuelan Amazon have grown chaotically, even in the areas around the cities. Mining Minister Gilberto Pinto said: "Our policy focuses on the use of new technologies to reduce irreversible environmental changes. The remediation clauses in our joint venture contracts are very strict". Opposition lawmaker Olivia Lozano said: "The regime has turned many mining areas over to its allies who mine gold and share it with the government and then ship it overseas. The Piar mining region is being provided with machinery and office trailers by the government to aid the effort. The material is then processed in the "Manuel Piar Complex in Ciudad Guayana, which is operated by the state Corporacion Venezolana de Mineria and is guarded by the intelligence police and the military".