Venezuela’s oil gets all the attention but is it really the most valuable resource? This week’s video explores how the oil formed and reveals the natural systems of Upper South America that are supporting life right now.

Why does Venezuela have so much oil and what’s really at stake?

That question is usually answered with maps of pipelines, export numbers, and geopolitics. But in this week’s Naturalists’ World episode, we stepped back and asked a deeper question: what kind of place had to exist for that oil to form in the first place, and what is that same place still doing today?

The oil beneath Venezuela was created by ancient ecosystems. Millions of years ago, warm seas filled with microscopic life covered much of northern South America. When that life died, it was buried, compressed, and transformed by heat, pressure, and time into the oil the world focuses on today. In that sense, oil is stored energy from a long-gone natural world.

But the story doesn’t stop underground.

When we look at Upper South America as a living region, a different picture comes into focus. This is one of the planet’s great freshwater engines, where seasonal rains drive rivers and floodplains that move nutrients, support fisheries, and fuel productivity across vast landscapes. It’s also one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth, shaped by the connection—and contrast—between rivers, forests, savannas, and ancient highlands. And beneath it all lies some of the oldest exposed rock on the planet, landscapes that have been shaping life for more than a billion years and are still doing that work today.

We can see the living systems of the Upper South American region in real time through iNaturalist. Over the past year, thousands of people on the ground have documented plants, animals, and fungi across Upper South America, showing where life is active, how it responds to water and season, and how tightly connected these systems still are. These observations remind us that this region isn’t just historically important; it’s functioning right now.

iNaturalist users in the region have contributed some great photos!

And this iNaturalist project from the region caught our eye!

The Flora of Guianas project is a consortium of nine institutes working together to demonstrate that taxonomic data plays an important role in the conservation and sustainable use of the natural resources.

Oil matters because it represents energy captured by ancient ecosystems. But freshwater systems, biodiversity, and living landscapes are creating value every single day, quietly, continuously, and without replacement if they’re lost. We will almost certainly find new ways to produce energy in the future. What we won’t be able to replace are the systems that make regions like this livable and resilient.

We’d love to hear from you. Which do you think matters most in the long run: oil extraction, freshwater, biodiversity, or living landscapes? And why? Join the conversation in the comments on YouTube and let us know how you see what’s really at stake here.

Thank you!

Scott

Naturalists’ World

*This content uses publicly available data from iNaturalist. iNaturalist does not endorse or sponsor this newsletter.

**Some images in this newsletter were shared on iNaturalist under a CC0 (public domain) license. We thank the contributors who generously chose to place their observations and photos in the public domain, helping make global nature education and conservation possible. Individual photographers are not attributed out of respect for personal privacy.