Chile

The Beautiful and The Dammed

Monday, May 31, 2010
The June 2010 edition of Outside Magazine has a feature article by Patrick Symmes on the Patagonia Dam issue called The Beautiful and the Dammed. We've made the article available for download for your reading pleasure, as we believe that it is a great article that captures the importance of the Patagonia dam issue and the global significance of Patagonia's cultural and environmental qualities. You can also visit the Outside Magazine website to see a photo gallery with a collection of great images from Patagonia.You can also view a Scribd version of the article here:The Beautiful and The Dammed

Patagonia Rising: A Story Too Important Not To Tell

Brian Lilla is the director of Patagonia Rising, the documentary-in-progress about the Patagonia dams issue
Brian Lilla is the director of Patagonia Rising, the documentary-in-progress about the Patagonia dams issue It has been an amazing couple of years since the Patagonia Campaign was launched. The amount of talent and dedication coming from the multitudes of people around the world working hard for the protection of Patagonia’s rivers from mega-hydroelectric development is spectacular. In this broad community of river defenders there are a few folks whose work really stands out. The team working on the documentary Patagonia Rising is an example of those whose efforts are really notable

Chile’s Dam Affected Communities Left in the Dark After Massive Earthquake

Chile's Industry has suffered extreme damage from the February 27 earthquake
Chile is still reeling in the aftermath and the aftershocks of the February 27th 8.8 magnitude earthquake. The main Chilean electrical grid, the SIC (Sistema Interconectado Central), which provides service to approximately 90 percent of the country's industrial and domestic energy users, has been particularly hard hit by the earthquake and the ongoing aftershocks. The new Minister of Energy Ricardo Raineri admitted upon taking office on March 11 that the transmission system in Chile is in a precarious state after the earthquake, and that the operation of the electrical grid system was in e

Third Suspension for HidroAysén Environmental Review

Endesa, controlled by the Italian giant Enel, is the majority stakeholder in HidroAysén
Endesa, controlled by the Italian giant Enel, is the majority stakeholder in HidroAysén HidroAysén is an Italian-Chilean joint venture to build 5 dams on the biggest and wildest rivers in Patagonia. The environmental review process for the HidroAysen project has been delayed for another six months due to the poor quality of the company’s studies.  In January, Corema, the regional environmental authority, submitted an additional 1000 comments on the project EIA to the company and asked for a response. HidroAysen requested another 6 months to prepare their response. The current EIA is so

Save Patagonia and We Will Save the World

Pinochet gave away the water rights to Patagonia's rivers in the last weeks of his dictatorship
Pinochet gave away the water rights to Patagonia's rivers in the last weeks of his dictatorship The cold hard facts of Chile's history make the Patagonia dams controversy one of the planet's emblematic natural resource conflicts. Regardless of Chile's desire to rid itself of the shadow of 17 years of dictatorship, the unsustainable nature of dam construction proposals such as HidroAysén are rooted in the exploitation and abuses of the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990). Coming from such a dark place, it is a wonder that so many Chileans can have such a bright outlook for

Río Pascua: Contra La Corriente de HidroAysén

Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Nuestro amigo y colega Italo Retamal de Ceibo Producciones ha creado este video de la material que él logró conseguir en la expedicón que International Rivers ayudó en realizar en enero de 2008 para conocer el Río Pascua. Tome un momento para gozar de las imagenes de un lugar realmente prístino y desconocido, y aprender más de la urgencia de proteger los ríos de la Patagonia Chilena de la amenaza de los mega-proyectos hidroeléctricos. Agradecemos a Juan Pablo Orrego de Ecosistemas por la narración excelente.

Open Season on Patagonia's Rivers Takes Three Workers Lives

Rescue Efforts to Locate 3 Men on the Remote Río Cuervo Have Been Futile
Rescue Efforts to Locate 3 Men on the Remote Río Cuervo Have Been Futile With "open season" declared on Patagonia's rivers, the costs and risks of building dams in Patagonia are now fatally apparent. On September 1, a Zodiac raft carrying 5 men working for Energía Austral (a subsidiary of the Swiss mining giant Xstrata) turned over in the Río Cuervo, where Energía Austral currently proposes to build a 640 MW dam. Of those 5 men, two managed to get to shore with their lives. The three others, Moisés Aros Salgado, Mario Méndez Maldonado, and Edgardo Rogel Arteaga, have no

Marcha Nacional Chile Sin + Represas

Marcha Nacional con más de 2000 personas en todo Chile
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Marcha Nacional con más de 2000 personas en todo Chile D.R. CDP El sábado el 29 de agosto hubo la primera manifestación al nivel nacional en Chile en defensa de los ríos. Desde Caleta Tortel y Villa O'Higgins en la Patagonia, hasta la capital de Santiago más de 2000 kilometros al norte, habían marchas organizadas en 15 ciudades. El objetivo de la marcha nacional fue exigir un nuevo modelo de protección para los ríos al largo del país que están amenezados por los grandes proyectos de represas y lineas de transmisión--incluyendo un rechazo total del proyecto HidroAysén. Por ejemplo

HidroAysén Postpones Environmental Review Process Until October 2009

Aerial View of Patagonia's Baker River
Aerial View of Patagonia's Baker River Yesterday, with a press release published on Burson-Marsteller letterhead, the HidroAysén company announced their intent to postpone until October of this year the resubmission of their project to environmental review. Those who have followed the work to protect Patagonia's rivers from massive hydroelectric development know that it was in August of last year that HidroAysén finally submitted their much-awaited Environmental Impact Study. Then it was in early November 2008 that they were able to make an "end run" around Chilean environmental regulation

Your Correspondent from Chile

As the rivers of Patagonia prepare for the open season onslaught of mega-hydroelectric development, and as Chile motors towards presidential elections, getting up to date news from the long thin country becomes a priority. Ben Witte is a Santiago based writer who has covered some of the most important political and environmental issues in Chile from the English language news website Santiago Times, and the sister publication Patagonia Times.  Ben has also published with independent news pages such as Upside Down World, and recently published his Chile’s Endangered Rivers article in the

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