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Photo: C. Prior

The Caura River watershed in southern Venezuela, an area of approximately 45,300 km² (about the size of New Hampshire and Vermont in the USA), is one of few large, virtually pristine tropical watersheds worldwide. One National Park encompasses a massif in the very remote Caura headwaters and a Natural Monument covers mountains along the western border. The vast remainder of the Caura Basin is a forest reserve technically set aside for logging. Most of the watershed is forested, but there are pockets of savanna in the Southern part. Principally, two indigenous groups, the Ye’kwana and the Sanema (Yanomami), live in the basin. Together, they number roughly 3,000 people in this enormous region. Both groups practice shifting agriculture, hunting and gathering. Other tribes of many fewer individuals (in the Caura), include the mountain nomadic Hoti on the western edge of the Basin, and the Pemon and the Piapoco near the Orinoco.