translated from Spanish: And what happened to the government’s environmental commitments?

The Piñera Government’s Environmental Programme was an interesting effort, which was accomplished involving relevant developments for Chile. However, the results have been very poor.
It aimed at the restructuring and streamlining of the Environmental Assessment System, with high standards of environmental quality, ensuring legal certainties for its actors, a long-awaited aspect, lacking in the proposal the environmental management of the territory, the existence of terms of reference between holders and the Environmental Assessment Service, and the environmental assessment of alternatives. However, in these matters the attempts have been essentially wrong, and to date without anything concrete.
In terms of permitting, it was required to simplify, eliminate duplication, and reduce political discretion, with a regulated, binding and vigorous procedure for environmentally relevant consultations. In addition, environmental insurance must be added, the purpose of which is to guarantee the conditions of environmental qualification resolutions. The question is what specific legal changes have been achieved?
He took over the forestry sector with the creation of the Forest Service, promoting a bill for small and medium-sized owners in the creation of forests for environmental and timber purposes, mitigating climate change and complying with emission reduction commitments, but to date we have not verified achievements, as well as the entry into force of the National Biodiversity Service and Protected Areas.
It promoted sustainable and inclusive mining in the social way, reducing uncertainty through clear and stable rules, and making a review of the rules of closure of work.  It supported the creation of mechanisms for dialogue and early resolution of conflicts through associativity, as well as the remediation of mining liabilities. But what happened to the “Mining Value” initiative? valuable and useful effort that was in its first stage. Similarly, this productive sector’s opposition to the glacier bill is at odds with the pretensions of new mining.
For fisheries, it recognized its omission in the Environmental Impact Assessment System (SEIA), incorporating in the recommendations of global quota capture the ecosystem/multispecies approach and the effects of environmental changes. This issue remains absent from the ETIAS, as do large forest plantations, which, despite their enormous environmental impacts, are not subject to the ETIAS.
It incorporated in the Law of Concessions mechanisms for the development of desalination works, transfers and water infiltration system, a public-private partnership initiative in which there have been disparate opinions within the same government, therefore nothing has been done.
Finally, it promised to create a portfolio of watershed plans addressing scarcity and infrastructure requirements, as well as strategic plans considering the recharge and interaction of surface and groundwater, and integrated management, further progressing in the generation of new water quality standards, delayed in several decades. It can only be said that the delay still exists.
It is possible to conclude these unfulfilled commitments, which were promises involving promises that ultimately conspired against a model based on short-term economic interests, and which corresponds to the same cause of the legitimate mobilizations that are verified today in Chile.
Eduardo Astorga
Lawyer

Original source in Spanish