State Resource Politics in the Realm of Crisis : The Forest Reserve Imataca under Dispute

This paper explores conflicts that have arisen around the opening of the Forest Reserve Imataca in Venezuela's south to large-scale mining activities, which is justified by the State to boost the ailing national economy. Venezuela's move towards intensifying natural resource exploitation in this region as well as resource use activities already under way might put one of the largest remaining tropical frontier forests in the world under severe threat. It is shown that these dynamics and the struggles of key groups (loggers, miners, indigenous people etc.) over resources are deeply tied to the history and political economy of the Venezuelan rentier-state. The meaning of natural resources for modernization and democratization processes in Venezuela has assigned specific roles to state and non state actors and the regulation of access to resources. In these discursive encounters of competing interests we can find old patterns of state-society relationship. These patterns are in particular reflected in the ways actors or groups perceive problematic issues and what arguments they bring forward to enforce their claims. MÜLLER / GRIMMIG / AICHER SEFUT Working Paper 4 1 State Resource Politics in the Realm of Crisis The Forest Reserve Imataca in Venezuela under Dispute