Each morning, José Aguilera inspects the leaves of his banana and coffee plants on his farm in eastern Venezuela and calculates how much he can harvest — almost nothing. Explosive gas flares from nearby oil wells spew an oily, flammable residue on the plants. “When it falls, everything dries up.”Venezuela’s oil industry, which helped transform the country’s fortunes, has been decimated by mismanagement and several years of U.S. sanctions imposed on the country’s authoritarian government, leaving behind a ravaged economy and a devastated environment. The state-owned oil company has struggled to maintain minimal production for export to other countries, as well as domestic consumption. But to do so it has sacrificed basic maintenance and relied on increasingly shoddy equipment that has led to a growing environmental toll, environmental activists say.

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Persons: José Aguilera, ” Locations: Venezuela, U.S