of evil" in the language of the Pem�n, local inhabitants of the park.
The Canaima National Park was created in order to safeguard the geological, biological and cultural values described above, but its major economic importance has been the production of water for the Guri Dam, which provides some 77% of the nation's electricity.
There were no management activities until 1981, when EDELCA a government electricity company, began a fire-fighting programme. Only in 1990 did the park receive its first park warden, and it remained with only one staff member until 1992 when eleven more staff were assigned and a Zoning and Use Plan for the Eastern Sector was approved.
Thirty-five years after the creation of Canaima National Park, the area continues to be managed on a shoestring budget: the operational management allocation for the Eastern Sector during 1996 was $1,171. Although the conditions for staff have improved in the last five years, the budget does not cover even the most basic management necessities: for example, the Gran Sabana has one vehicle in poor condition and there is no radio system. The Western Sector of the park is still lacking a Zoning and Use Plan.
Active park management has become more of a necessity in recent years given the growing threats to Canaima National Park. These threats have been analysed in participatory rural appraisal (PRA) run by a non-governmentl organisation together with several Pem�n communities and parks agency personnel. A resume of threats is shown in Table 1.
The main pressures on the park come from two sources. On one hand the demands of the Pem�n population resident in the park have increased. The Pem�n population has quintupled over the last twenty years, and there is clearly a demographic effect of sheer numbers, which has brought about increasing demands on the parks natural resources. However, the situation is more complex, as changes in settlement pattern have led to new land-use
