Swans, Conflicts, and Resonance

Abstract

A major legal reform of Chilean environmental institutions was approved in November 2009, at the end of Michelle Bachelet's administration. In sharp contrast with the external pressures that provided the impetus for the establishment of the country's environmental institutions in the early 1990s, this time the driving forces came mainly from an "internal demand," a broad social and political consensus about the need to improve the environmental framework. This consensus was a consequence of the institutional breakdown revealed by a local movement that emerged in Valdivia, southern Chile, in response to a major ecological disaster produced by the effluents of a pulp mill that polluted a protected wetland and caused the death and migration of an endangered population of black-necked swans. Although the Valdivian movement did not succeed in stopping the disaster and restoring the wetland, it triggered an unprecedented examination of the performance of environmental institutions, finally forcing the 2009 environmental reform. The resonance of the Valdivian movement can be understood in the context of dozens of environmental conflicts that had been accumulating for more than a decade, largely as an effect of the crisis of legitimacy of environmental institutions. Although this recently approved legislation represented an overall advance, it failed to address the issues that led to the institutional breakdown, in particular the need for democratization of decision making and the broadening of public participation. Paradoxically, thus, the reform perpetuated the crisis of legitimacy that underlay its origin, reinforcing the exclusionary mechanisms that largely explain socio-environmental unrest and ecological destruction in Chile.Una reforma mayor a las instituciones ambientales de Chile fue aprobada en noviembre de 2009, cerca del fin del mandato de Michelle Bachelet. En claro contraste con las presiones externas que impulsaron el establecimiento de las instituciones ambientales del país a principios de la década de los noventa, las fuerzas impulsoras de dicha reforma provinieron de una "demanda interna" que dio paso a un amplio consenso político y social sobre la necesidad de mejorar el marco legal ambiental. Tal consenso fue consecuencia del quiebre institucional provocado por un movimiento local surgido en Valdivia, en el sur de Chile, en respuesta a un agudo desastre ecológico producido por los efluentes de una celulosa, los que contaminaron un humedal protegido y causaron la muerte y migración de una población amenazada de cisnes de cuello negro. Aunque el movimiento valdiviano no logró su propósito de detener el desastre y restaurar el humedal, gatilló una revisión sin precedentes del desempeño de las instituciones ambientales, forzando finalmente su reforma a fines del 2009. La resonancia del movimiento valdiviano puede ser at UNIVERSITE DE MONTREAL on June 7, 2015 lap.sagepub.com Downloaded from

An empirical study of EIA litigation involving energy facilities in Chile and Colombia

“…A closely related set of challenges has to do with the expectations and needs communities bring to participatory processes; when it comes to EIAs, most communities are the politically and economically weak party seeking to counter the proposals of powerful multinational corporations and their allies in government. Scholars have found that public participation procedures often fail to level the power asymmetries that characterize the relationships between developers, state agents and communities (Aguilar-Støen and Hirsch, 2017; Gregory, 2017; Li, 2015; Enríquez-de-Salamanca, 2018; Sepulveda and Villarroel, 2012;Londoño, 2008;Rodríguez-Becerra and Canal, 2008;Hurtado, 2002). Too often, participation is designed to convey information rather than integrate the community's input into the final decision.…”

“…In both countries, activists and scholars have criticized public participation in EIAs as a sham process intended to legitimize development projects rather than give communities the power to reshape or veto projects (Sepulveda and Villarroel, 2012;Tecklin et al, 2011;Zárate Yepes, 2016;Rodríguez and Muñoz Ávila, 2009). Protests against new mine, energy and highway projects have become common as the pace of construction and extraction has quickened (Bury and Bebbington, 2013), and EIAs have become key sites of contentious politics (Hochstetler, 2011;Jaskoski, 2014).…”

The authority of rules in Chile’s contentious environmental politics

“…Congress replaced a coordinating agency, the National Commission for the 35 Environment (Conama), with an Environment Ministry, an autonomous Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Agency, an enforcement agency, and specialized tribunals. Yet noted environmentalist-scholars have called the reforms 'a wasted opportunity' because public participation rights were insufficiently extended and decision-making, particularly in EIAs, remained 40 'politicized' (Sepulveda and Villarroel 2012). Chilean debates about how to depoliticize EIA decisions are an instance of the problem of legitimacy in a liberal democracy with strong neoliberal influences.…”

“…Since the 1990s, Chilean authorities have made this choice through EIAs, a procedure by which the authorities evaluate one industrial project at a time to assess its environmental impacts and propose measures 100 to reduce, eliminate, mitigate or compensate those impacts. Critics complain that EIAs have promoted conflict because they are prone to political intervention and have fragmented Chilean environmental politics (Carruthers andRodriguez 2009, Sepulveda andVillarroel 2012).…”

“…In Chile and worldwide, communities are contesting EIAs 260 and demanding greater rights to participate directly in EIAs (Glasson and Neves Salvador 2000, Doberstein 2004, Mascarenhas and Scarce 2004, Goldman 2005, Li 2009, Hochstetler 2011, Kolhoff et al 2013. In Chile critics decry environmental decisions based on 'economic and technical criteria' instead of communities' input (Camus andHajek 1998, Larrain 265 1999), but also decisions made for 'political' reasons, such as supporting business, that have no foundation in scientific and technical criteria (Carruthers and Rodriguez 2009, Costa Cordella 2012, Cuadra Montoya 2012, Sepulveda and Villarroel 2012, Risley 2014. Whether the problem is too much or too little reliance on 'technical criteria', these activists and 270 scholars advocate for increased citizen control of EIA decisions, exemplified by demands for mandatory or legally binding participation (Cuadra Montoya 2012, Sepulveda andVillarroel 2012, p. 193).…”