Many Pemón in Venezuela, along with some of the scholars who study them, say that burning grassland and forest helps prevent grasses from building into biomass for much larger fires that could tear through the region. Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

By SIMON ROMERO; Maria Eugenia Díaz contributed reporting from Caracas
Published: April 22, 2010 YUNÉK, Venezuela — The mist-shrouded mountains rising out of the forest here form one of the world’s most beguiling frontiers of exploration and research, inspiring Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1912 fantasy novel “The Lost World” and teams of biologists who still mount expeditions to remote escarpments in hopes of finding species new to science. But in the savannas below, the tendrils of smoke hanging over the landscape attest to a custom that has set off a fierce debate among scientists in Venezuela and beyond: the Pemón Indian tradition of repeatedly burning grassland and forest to hunt for animals and grow food. The drought that afflicted Venezuela this year is intensifying claims that the Pemón have unleashed a surge in fires that rains would normally extinguish. Some forestry specialists say the fires put the Gran Sabana, a region about the size of Ireland that includes the enigmatic tabletop mountains known as tepuis (pronounced tey-POO-ees), at risk of deforestation and species loss. President Hugo Chávez’s government is already facing broad public ire over electricity shortages, and the state electricity company fears that the fires could diminish the forests that help gather and release water, and boost river sediments into the Guri, the hydroelectric complex that provides Venezuela with most of its electricity. But many Pemón, along with some of the scholars who study them, say the fires help prevent grasses from building into biomass for much larger fires that could tear through the region, in the way vast wildfires devastated parts of Indonesia in 1997. … “Why would I change a custom that has worked for generations?” asked Antonio García, 70, a Pemón hunter, as he set out one recent morning near Santa Elena de Uairén, a squalid border town rife with smuggling activity. … Others disagree. Nelda Dezzeo, a forestry biologist at the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research, contends that some forests in the Gran Sabana may never recuperate from repeated fires. She said the threat of fires spreading from savanna to forest were especially worrisome. “There are cloud forest areas in the Gran Sabana where new tree species are still being studied,” she said. “If damage migrates to these areas, these species could be lost, or we might lose species we’re not even aware of yet.” … “The government is wrong if it thinks the Pemón are its docile sheep in the savannas,” said Demetrio Gómez, 36, a Pemón leader who took part in a violent protest near Santa Elena de Uairén this year to dislodge squatters from Pemón land. “We burned these lands long before anyone else arrived,” he said, “and we’ll keep burning them into eternity.”

In Venezuela’s Savanna, Clash of Science and Fire