4 October. The Earth From The Air 365 Days
October 04
Venezuela. Orinoco Delta. Houses on stilts at Fisherman's Point.
The European adventurers who landed at the Maracaibo Lagoon at the end of the fifteenth century christened this land Venezuela - literally "little Venice." Just a few years earlier the crews of Christopher Columbus's caravels, who also dropped anchor not far from the Orinoco Delta, had been struck by the landscape that stretched out before them. Their description of its countless estuaries, deep forests, canals, and mangroves could, in part, be a description of Venice. And in the southern Orinoco Delta these palafitos, houses on stilts in which 15,000 Warao Indians live, also recall Venice and the modest wooden dwellings of its lagoon fishermen. The world's great rivers, deltas, and seashores are now home to their traditional inhabitants as well as a growing proportion of the
planet's population, all of whom threaten these fragile ecosystems.