Humanity is waging a “suicide war” against nature, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in early December in a speech at Columbia University, New York. “Biodiversity is collapsing. One million species at risk of extinction and ecosystems disappear before our eyes,” said the head of the United Nations.
To stem the climate crisis, carbon neutrality must be achieved by 2050, that is, that by that year humanity will stop emitting more carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere than the planet is capable of withstanding. If we do not achieve that, the temperature will rise above 1.5oC from the pre-industrial period and chain impacts will be generated on ecosystems and our way of life. In this important challenge, Chile stood out as one of the pioneer countries in the world in committing to concrete measures.
This event marked positively the environmental balance of the South American country during this 2020 although old problems, such as the water crisis and pollution in the so-called sacrificial zones, remain pending. Those who suffer the impacts of these two major conflicts claim that Chile’s image of the world as a leader in environmental issues is “a lie.”
Moreover, the South American country’s refusal to sign the Escazu Agreement – Latin America’s first major environmental treaty – provoked harsh criticism among the opposition and environmental organizations.
Mongabay Latam analyses in this balance sheet the main issues that marked Chile’s environmental agenda in the midst of the pandemic. A crisis that also had an impact on this area and will continue to have an impact in 2021 given the budget cut by the Ministry of the Environment.
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The good: the road to decarbonization
All countries that signed the Paris Agreement – the most important international treaty in the fight against climate change – in 2010 must submit commitments known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 and abolish them by 2050. Chile was the first country in Latin America and one of the top 10 in the world to present its NDCs this year.
The country’s plan is based on four areas: changing the transport system to one based on clean fuels, decarbonizing the energy matrix to use renewable energy, increasing energy efficiency and boosting afforestation and reforestation.
Huasco, Atacama region, Chile. Photo: Oceana-Claudia Pool
The former environment minister during Michelle Bachelet’s presidential term, Marcelo Mena, recognized the delivery of the NDC as an important and positive advance not only at the national but also regional level as he assured Mongabay Latam that “Latin America is moving towards decarbonization guided by Chile’s commitment”.
President Sebastián Piñera stated, during the August public account, that at the end of his government (in March 2022), of the 6800 buses that make up Santiago’s bus network, more than 5000 will be ecological and that by 2024 more than 30% of the coal-fired power generation capacity will have been replaced by clean energies. In fact, Ricardo Bosshard, director of WWF Chile, noted that last October 28.1% of the total energy generated in the country came from sustainable sources which he ensures is “a historical figure”.
In addition, a bill seeking coal-fired or thermoelectric power plants to close in 2025 has allowed the discussion to be installed on the need to advance that process that for now has a deadline of 2040. “That discussion has already become inescapable,” Bosshard says.
In the same line of decarbonisation, as of May 2021 Pension Fund Managers (AFPs) should consider aspects of climate change when deciding where to invest Chilean pension money.
In addition, energy minister Juan Carlos Jobet announced a plan that seeks to move towards the production of a new fuel that has three times more energy per unit of mass than gasoline and does not pollute: green hydrogen. “There is a chance to turn the country to something more sustainable,” Says Mena.
Huasco, Atacama region, Chile. Foto: Oceana-Claudia Pool
Fabia Liberona, director of Fundación Terram, agrees that Chile has taken an important step in decarbonization. However, it states that the “small letter” of the strategy says that coal-fired power plants “shut down, but remain in the system (without operating)” and that “that could eventually mean that they can be re-started in any situation deemed emergency.” In addition, it adds that the plan does not consider “dismantling (of infrastructure) or decontamination or remediation”, so the plants will remain as an environmental liability.
Another issue that was criticized was the ‘green tax’ included in the tax reform. That CO2 emissions tax remained at five dollars a ton of CO2 “when globally there is talk of $30 a tonne up and that means there is no real incentive for companies to close,” Liberona says.
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The worrying thing: Chile turns its back on Escazu
In the opinion of former Minister Mena, Chile’s climate crisis leadership was oversweezed by the refusal to sign the Escazu agreement, which “becomes one of the black spots of environmental management,” he says.
Although Chile was one of the promoters of this first international treaty – which recognizes the duty of the States of Latin America and the Caribbean to protect environmental defenders, as well as to ensure access to information, participation and environmental justice – it finally withse to sign it.
The reasons for the decision were presented in a “very uns serious” report, Liberona says, as the document does not have a responsible one, nor does it have signatures from ministers.
Among the foundations of the Government is the fact that Escazu would contain “ambiguous” obligations that could condition Chile’s environmental laws, create legal uncertainty and expose the country to international disputes.
In September 2018, fifteen Latin American countries signed the Escazu Agreement. Photo: CEPAL.
For Mena, the fact is particularly negative because of the legitimacy crisis in which the government has been in since the social outburst in October 2019. This “is resolved with participation and dialogue and this is what drives the Escazu agreement,” the former minister says, adding that “instead of giving people the opportunity to express their concerns, what the government does is limit instances of participation.”
Liberona adds that while it is “regrettable” that the government has decided not to sign the treaty, it caused the agreement to “go from being known to anyone to everyone’s knew him,” he says. “Today is an issue on all political agendas (of the country),” says Terram’s director, as while acknowledging that the situation in Chile regarding the danger to which environmental defenders are exposed “is not as dramatic as in Colombia,” she says that “there are threats.” Such is the case of Rodrigo Mundaca, spokesman of the Movement for the Defense of Water, Earth and Environmental Protection (Modatima), who has led the conflict over water in Chile and Katta Alonso, president of the organization Mujeres de Zona de Sacrificio Quintero – Puchuncaví, which for years calls for the sanitation of one of the most polluted areas of the country.
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The tragic: the long wait for the sacrificial zones
May marked one year since the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling on behalf of the communities of Quintero and Puchuncaví, two communes in the Valparaiso region where more than 1700 people, mainly children, were poisoned in 2018 by emission of polluting gases.
The highest court ordered the State to implement 15 measures to determine the source and perpetrators of the crisis, as well as to solve the pollution problem that has been affecting this ‘sacrificial zone’ for years, considered as such because the high industrial concentration has devastated it environmentally.
In response to the ruling, the Ministry of the Environment initiated the development in 2020 of a project to standardn volatile organic compounds in the air, including hydrocarbon gases that are not currently measured, and also initiated the process for issuing an arsenic standard.
View of the industrial park from the beach of Ventanas. Photo: Michelle Carrere
The inhabitants of Quintero and Puchuncaví, however, claim that the measures ordered by the Supreme Court have not been mainly realized because so far there is no clarity on what intoxicated them or who are responsible. “Wewe don’t know yet what each company emits and let alone know who intoxicated us (…) therefore, the first measure has not been fulfilled that was fundamental to us,” says Katta Alonso, president of the civil organization that has led the environmental defense of the territory Women of The Quintero-Puchuncaví Sacrifice Zone.
In May, the National Institute of Human Rights filed a letter with the Valparaiso Court of Appeals to hold accountable for the enforcement of the judgment. “We still don’t know what effect the chemical compounds present in the area could have on the health of those living in these communes (…) the Supreme Court ordered the investigation and rule on such effects. The result is still pending,” Sergio Micco, director of INDH, said in a statement.
On the other hand, Alonso says that “for a rule to exist it can be 20, 40 years if there is no political will. That’s the problem with the Supreme Court ruling, which didn’t give them time.”
Fisherman in fishermen’s cove of Ventanas – sacrifice area Quintero Puchuncaví. Photo: Michelle Carrere.
For now, the government’s decontamination plan after the 2018 poisonings only measures excess particulate matter and sulphur dioxide. However, toxicologist Andrei Tchernitchin, president of the department of the environment of the Medical College, confirms that there are other substances in the area that are not considered. The plan also does not include soil and water pollution and “allows (companies) to get out of the standard 163 times a year,” Alonso says. It’s “embarrassing,” says the environmental advocate, and in “day by day we stay exactly the same,” she adds.
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The problem: the water crisis
A second conflict that Chile has been dragging on for years is the water crisis. While this year the rains were more abundant than in 2019, experts say they were not enough to reverse the mega-sequía that has been hitting the central part of the country for a decade. In communes such as Petorca, La Ligua or Putaendo, in the Valparaiso region, there is simply no water.
The reasons are mainly three: the scarcity of precipitation due to the effects of climate change, natural cycles typical of the semi-arid climate that characterizes the area and an overscathing of water mainly from the agricultural sector.
In this context, three events were relevant this 2020. First, a pronouncement by the Contraloria that declared the authorization of native forest cutting management plans to allocate the land for agricultural purposes incompatible.
The forest native to the central area of sclerophilic Chile performs important ecosystem functions, including regulating the water balance and acting as a natural barrier to contain desertification. However, the wooded area has declined over the years to allow agricultural expansion, mainly fruiting, affecting aquifers.
Avocado crops in areas of water scarcity. Photo: Pamela Olate
According to data obtained by CIPER, 1362 management plans were approved by the National Forestry Corporation (CONAF) between July 31, 2008 and March 2020. These plans allowed 22,281 hectares of native forest to be cut down, although it has been protected by law since 2008, and only three communes in the central part of the country concentrated 45% of that deforestation.
The Opinion of the Contraloria “is very relevant,” Liberona says, because it states that “those (management) plans are illegal,” he says.
A second Opinion of Contraloria established that projects carried out in Ecological Preservation Areas in the Metropolitan region of Santiago should be submitted to an Environmental Impact Assessment. In an interview in the Constitutional Journal, lawyers Natalia Alfieri and Waldo Florit explain that the communes bordering the Metropolitan Region border a mountain range that has been defined as an Ecological Preservation Area to ensure the balance of the environment. According to Liberona, the Opinion of Contraloria will allow urban expansion to be regulated as real estate projects that want to settle in that area will have to go through a stricter evaluation.
Salamanca, the Choapa River basin was declared depleted while avocado crops stretch along the slopes of the hills. Photo: Pamela Olate.
Both opinions, terram’s director says, “protect the forest, particularly the super-damaged sclerophyll, allowing for greater conservation of water resources.” However, Liberona is critical in noting that “President Piñera continues to insist on making new reservoirs to expand agricultural production, the agro-exporting model, in vi’m worried about the water situation communities are in.”
Indeed, during the public account held in August 2020, the President announced that the construction of 26 reservoirs has been launched, in addition to 12 desalination plants that will be added to the 23 that already operate in the country. “Without a doubt, consolidating our rural world, transforming Chile into an agri-food power is going to mean a tremendous boost to our regions,” he said.
Finally, the Senate passed a bill in early December seeking to submit Environmental Impact Studies to forestry projects.
Pine monocultures. Photo: Chilean Wood Corporation
In Chile, more than three million hectares of monocultures of pine and eucalyptus make this country the second largest producer of cellulose in Latin America. For now, however, “forestry operations under 500 hectares are outside the Environmental Impact Assessment System, which is a margin we consider wide,” says Ricardo Bosshard, director of WWF Chile. “It seems to us that this limit should be reduced, as well as to consider two contiguous or adjacent projects, taking into account the cumulative effects they may have on the basins, which has an impact in terms of the current water crisis,” says the WWF director.
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The bad: the pandemic and the budget cut
The coVID-19 health crisis impacted the budget of protected natural areas as 60% of annual funding comes from tickets paid by tourists, says Miguel Díaz, CONAF’s Manager of Protected Wilderness Areas. “Redistributing the country’s domestic spending to more priority things meant a cut in the purchase of materials, fuel and wages for services that need to be contracted externally,” Diaz says.
In addition, the impact of this impact is greater when Chile is considered to be one of the 10 countries that invest less funds in the conservation of its biodiversity globally, according to a scientific study published in 2013. According to Díaz, Chile invests on average about 40 cents per hectare protected while, for example, Argentina invests between $8 and $10 per hectare.
An analysis by Terram Foundation shows that since 2017 the trend of tax contribution to the National System of Protected Wilderness Areas of the State is downwards and will be no different in 2021, as the total budget decreases by 3.9% from 2020 remaining at $17,627,963,000 (about $23,680,000). Of that total, less than $7 million comes from state input and everything else is estimated to be paid for the collection of park accesses and reserves. It is a problem that “if one considers the context of the pandemic that could be extended by 2021, it is clear that there is a possibility that collection will not happen as budgeted,” Terram warns in his analysis.
The positive thing about the pandemic, Diaz adds, is that the absence of tourists allowed biodiversity to recover. “There are fewer humans involved in the essential habitats of animals so they are calmer. The fauna is in much better condition and can have a more natural relationship than when the thousands of visitors are,” he says.
On the other hand, marine protected areas (AMP) also have a limited budget and, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), without considering the area extent of MPA since 2018, “existing funding covers only 1.7% of the estimated amount as necessary for the proper functioning of existing marine areas”.
Sea park Nazca Deventuradas. Photo: Eduardo Sorensen-Oceana
Although Chile leads sea protection in square kilometers, only 5 of the 28 marine areas with some category of protection have a management plan and “the operational financial gap to effectively conserve and protect existing MPA is of such magnitude that it invites reflection on whether the current AMPs are areas of protection in strict rigour” Terram says.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) ends the year with a worrying news for marine species living in Chile. Nine species increased their vulnerability category on the Red List of Threatened Species. Of these, the Fine Tollo (Mustelus mento), the Common Tollo (Mustelus whitneyi), the Spotted Tollo (Triakis maculata) and the angelote (Squatina armata), all of them sharks, became critically endangered. The Volantine Stripe (Dipturus chilensis) and the Spiny Stripe (Dipturus trachydermus) went from Vulnerable to Endangered and the Raya eagle (Myliobatis chilensis), the Peruvian Stripe (Myliobatis peruvianus) and the Guitar Fish (Pseudobatos planiceps) were classified as Vulnerable.
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The hopeful: a new constitution
Scientists, conservationists and lawyers close to environmental causes have highlighted the possibilities that open up with the drafting of a new constitution. In October, Chileans voted in a plebiscite in favour of having a new magna letter that, according to constitutionalist experts interviewed by Mongabay Latam, has the possibility of having a cross-cutting vision, in which environmental protection is present in all areas in which the country develops. The objective, says Liliana Galdámez, professor and researcher at the Center for Human Rights of the University of Chile’s law school, is to “bet on a state of environmental law”, where the right to a healthy environment is most important and inspires the action of all organs of the State.
Therefore, Galdámez argued, it is key to include the environment within the first articles of the constitution that are the ones that basically establish the fundamental values of the State. These articles “are very important,” she says, because “from these early rules the whole constitution is reinterpreted” and with this decision, she adds, she would contribute so that “some dimensions that are in the text today, such as the duty of the State to protect the protection of nature, be better read, better understood, have a broader and more meaningful scope”.
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