FWD: Animals at Hato Pinero wildlife sanctuary face uncertain future

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This article is from The Star Online (http://thestar.com.my)

URL:

http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2005/5/10/features/10875051 & sec=\

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Tuesday May 10, 2005

Animals at Hato Pinero wildlife sanctuary face uncertain future

By PASCAL FLETCHER and PATRICK MARKEY

 

 

After years of providing a refuge for jaguars, giant storks and anacondas,

Venezuela’s best-known eco-tourism reserve is fighting for its own survival

against a government land reform.

 

The Hato Pinero private reserve itself is endangered after President Hugo

Chavez’s government made it a target for takeover to

redistribute rural land to the poor.

 

 

 

But its owners, the Branger family, are waging a court battle to protect the

80,000ha

property against a government declaration that it is public land and subject to

confiscation.

 

“We’re fighting this at all levels. We’ve gone to the courts ... and we’ll

appeal to international opinion and to the international courts because we feel

we have a very strong case here,” said Jaime Perez Branger, president of the

company that operates Hato Pinero.

 

He said the takeover move, part of a war declared by the populist Chavez against

private estates called “latifundios”, was already affecting the reserve’s

tourism business and its working cattle ranch. A government order to halt an

irrigation system on the property was also driving away wild animals to areas

where they could fall prey to hunters.

 

The Branger family, which has held Hato Pinero for over a half century, has

appealed

against the March 12 ruling by the state National Land Institute (INTI) which

declared

the family’s ownership titles did not prove it was private land.

 

Perez says the documents clearly show a chain of private ownership from 1794 to

1951, when the Brangers purchased it. INTI

has said it wants to keep Hato Pinero as a

nature park but intends to set up a farm cooperative on the property.

 

Perez sees political motivations behind the

move to take over the reserve, which incorporates a showcase biological station

and herbarium that have been visited by thousands of scientists, students

and tourists.

 

 

 

“You can’t be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or squirrel of subversion,”

said a quote on the website of Hato Pinero,

which has worked for decades to conserve

the unique fauna and flora of Venezuela’s central plains.

 

Perez accused government officials of falsely

presenting the case against Hato Pinero as a battle against rich, landowning

“oligarchs.”

Hato Pinero is located in rural Cojedes state

where the government is also moving to take

over most of the British-owned El Charcote

cattle ranch it says belongs to the state.

 

Chavez’s aggressive campaign to enforce a 2001 land law allowing the state to

expropriate idle farmland and confusion surrounding its application have stirred

fears about illegal land grabs in oil-rich Venezuela. By law, the government can

take back land if owners cannot provide required ownership titles and can

expropriate private land judged not to be in proper production.

 

The authorities said El Charcote ranch owned by British meat producer Vestey and

Hato Pinero eco-tourism farm had failed to show adequate ownership papers. Part

of their land will pass to the state, but the farms

have 60 days to appeal.

 

 

 

INTI director Eliezer Otaiza assured that private property would be guaranteed.

“We have all the evidence and elements that we need to take the decisions that

we have taken,” she said.

 

But critics condemned the move as a politically motivated and illegal

confiscation of property. “The Constitution foresees confiscation only in the

case of drug traffickers or those who plundered the state treasury, not for

farmers,” Jose Manuel Gonzalez, president of the Fedeagro farmers’ federation,

said.

 

Meanwhile, Perez says the Brangers are

appealing for support from international

organisations like World Parks, the World

Wildlife Fund and the Audubon Society,

which have backed Hato Pinero’s long-running

conservation efforts.

 

He complained the government was ignoring

this work. Hato Pinero’s Web site,

<a href= " http://www.hatopinero.com " target= " _blank " >www.hatopinero.com</a>,

lists studies carried out by researchers from Venezuela and abroad on local

species like the cayman, the Capuchin monkey and the capybara – a large rodent

that abounds on the Venezuelan plains.

 

“Give me an example of another national park in Venezuela where you see the

quantity and variety of fauna that you see in Hato Pinero?” asked Perez.

 

He rejected allegations by the land institute

that most of the property’s land was unproductive.

 

“We have 11,000 head of cattle and production that is equivalent to one calf

born every four hours,” he said. – Reuters<p>

 

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