Development & Aid, Environment, Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean, Poverty & SDGs

CHILE: State of the Environment Report Confirms Activists’ Warnings

Daniela Estrada

SANTIAGO, Sep 29 2006 (IPS) - In spite of efforts by the public and private sectors, Chile is still losing its wealth of natural resources, according to experts commissioned by the government to produce a report on the state of the country’s environment. Environmental organisations point out that this conclusion confirms the warnings they have been voicing for years.

“The results of the study by the University of Chile, written by well-reputed researchers, are in agreement with environmental indicators, with the opinions of all the actors involved, and with general public opinion,” Rodrigo Pizarro, executive director of the non-governmental Terram Foundation, told IPS.

“There has been considerable environmental degradation in recent years, which has caused conflicts to flare up in several parts of the country because the costs are passed on to the most vulnerable communities, creating a situation of inequality,” he added.

Pizarro was referring to the conclusions of the third “Country Report: State of the Environment 2005”, produced by the University of Chile’s Institute of Public Affairs and financed by the state National Commission for the Environment (CONAMA), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

“Our country has been diminished and continues to be diminished. We have less soil, less forests, less fresh water, less clean air, less marine resources,” said the academic in charge of the research, Nicolo Gligo, at the document’s launch on Tuesday.

“The balance sheet is negative,” in spite of efforts made by the state and the private sector, the expert told IPS. “What is being done is important, but it can’t compensate for the enormous pressures from the current economic model,” said Gligo, who was also in charge of the previous editions of the country report, published in 1999 and 2002.

The 371-page document is divided into three chapters: Macro pressures on the environment, state of the environment and the natural heritage, and policies and instruments for environmental management.

The second chapter contains a detailed analysis, based on up-to-date research data, of the condition of the air, ground and surface water, native forests, biodiversity, soils, marine and coastal ecosystems, minerals and hydrocarbons, human settlements and energy.

The entire environmental spectrum is in worse shape since the previous report. Researchers who worked on the project attribute this to the “macro pressures” to which the environment is subjected by the current development model.

“We came to the conclusion that economic activity is a factor that exerts macro pressures on the environment far beyond the response capability of the community and particularly of the public sector,” Gligo stated.

Air quality is the first aspect touched on by the report. Statistics show that decontamination plans for Santiago, one of the most polluted cities in the world in terms of smog, have not been fulfilled, although the total amount of airborne particulate matter has been reduced.

“There is a chronic lack of a comprehensive systems approach and effective implementation of decontamination plans and programmes, which are constantly postponed,” the expert remarked.

The situation of native forests is equally worrying, as their extent has been reduced throughout the country. The replacement of native species with plantation trees like pine and eucalyptus has been a major factor, and a draft law on the subject has been bogged down in Congress for 13 years.

Positive aspects include the creation of the National System of State-Protected Wilderness Areas (SNASPE), and the number of green areas in private hands, such as Parque Pumalín, located in the southern Los Lagos region and kept as a nature reserve by its owner, U.S. magnate Douglas Tompkins.

Biodiversity is being threatened by deforestation, the expansion of the agricultural frontier, urban expansion and exploitation of flora and fauna, in spite of a newly created national strategy for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. The country’s soils have suffered such physical, biological and chemical degradation that not even recuperation and irrigation programmes have been able to reverse the phenomenon. Gligo pointed out that the last comprehensive evaluation of soil erosion in Chile was carried out in 1979. “There is a trend in this country away from comprehensive, aggregated studies of environmental problems,” he said.

The only area with mildly positive results was that of minerals. Mining, especially high-volume mining, caused less pollution thanks to the legislation in force and the certification of companies, although their enormous consumption of water is cause for concern.

The quality of life of the Chilean populace has risen in terms of drinking water, housing, sewer systems, and waste water treatment, but there are still not enough green areas or good transport systems, says the report. The reasons for this are poorly planned expansion of the cities, affected by real estate economics.

The report also mentions the significant ecological cost of large dams in Chile. At present, a number of civil society and environmental organisations are opposing the plans of Endesa, the local subsidiary of a Spanish company, to build four hydroelectric plants on two swift-flowing rivers in the Aysén region, 2,000 kilometres south of Santiago, which would destroy 10,000 hectares of virgin wilderness.

In spite of the stark results of the study, the executive director of CONAMA, Ana Lya Uriarte, refused to say that Chile’s environment is in bad shape. She told IPS that “the first conclusion of the report is that it must be read very attentively and rigorously, avoiding the temptation to over-simplify.”

“The report documents remarkable progress in the State’s process of institutionalising and using environmental management tools,” Uriarte added, while stressing the government’s willingness to bring environmental information into the open.

According to Uriarte, the report shows that “Chile faces a challenge in protecting its national resources, and we have instruments that we must use to make economic growth and adequate environmental protection compatible with each other, which is the key focus of the government’s policy.”

However, President Michelle Bachelet’s record on environmental management since she took office in March has not pleased environmentalists, mainly because of her failure to fulfil one of her chief campaign pledges on the environment.

In November 2005, Bachelet promised that her administration “would not consider nuclear power as part of the country’s energy sources.” However, in early September the president announced funding for feasibility studies on nuclear power in Chile, although she ruled out the possibility of a nuclear power being built during her term of office.

The response from environmental organisations and members of parliament belonging to the governing centre-left coalition and to the rightwing opposition was to create an “Anti-Nuclear Front” on Sep. 14, to counter lobbying in Congress by foreign nuclear industry companies, which they say has been going on for a long time.

The anti-nuclear group will carry out public awareness campaigns in the country’s municipalities and schools, and will promote clean energy sources.

“During Bachelet’s six months in office, there have been low points and high points,” Pizarro said. One of the big strides forward, he added, was the government’s introduction to Congress of a draft law that would carry out a major reform by creating an Environment Ministry.

But the environmentalist described as a step backwards an announcement made this month by minister of Mining and Energy Karen Poniachik, to grant fast-track treatment to approval of environmental impact studies for energy projects.