1 Neo-extractivism, Neo-rentierism and Social Movements in Venezuela’s 21st Century Ecosocialism: Discourses, Conflicts and Resistance 1 María-Pilar García-Guadilla It is becoming clear that for the progressive Governments or for the new left governments, environmental issues have become a flank of serious contradictions. Their strong support to extractive activities to fuel economic growth is aggravating environmental impacts, triggers serious social protests, and perpetuates the subordination to be suppliers of raw materials for globalization. Eduardo Gudynas i Introduction: new questions about the old New Left governments’ discourses In response to the mobilization of socio-environmental movements, Latin American governments incorporated the discourses of sustainable development and participatory democracy into regional agendas such as the Latin American and Caribbean Commission on Development and the Environment’s “Our Own Agenda” of 1990. They concurred with the official Rio Declaration of 1992 on the discourse on sustainable development expressed in the 1987 World Commission on the Environment and Development’s Brundtlandt Report, but they differed on the relevant role they assigned to democracy; they emphasized the need to go beyond representative democracy and to complement it with “participatory democracy”. In the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Summit, Latin American governments and social movements pointed to extensive poverty and underdevelopment as environmental problems per se, emphasizing that to achieve sustainable development, it was first necessary to decrease poverty and to increase international and national social equity. They also shared 1 In the book, Environmental Movements around the World: Shades of Green in Politics and Culture. Thimothy Doyle and Sherilyn MacGregor, Editors. Praeguer 2014 Vol. 1 pp 77-104