Chile

For decades, Mapuche communities have been resisting the impacts of a forestry model based on large-scale monoculture plantations. In this interveiw, Pablo Reyes Huenchumán, spokesperson for the Paillakawe community, explains how they organize, and what the main challenges are in the struggle to recover their territory and maintain their culture.

In early 2023, Chile once again experienced megafires which caused devastating damage to affected regions.

A documentary produced by the audiovisual collective, Ojo de Treile, shows how industrial monoculture plantations in southern Chile have been causing mega-droughts and voracious forest fires.

What a certain historiography terms civilizational expansion or capital’s expansion has in fact been the invasion and de-territorialization of peoples and communities using much epistemic and territorial violence. Concessions have been granted in areas that are not demographic voids, a colonial concept that ignores the fact that they have been populated for millennia.

Conversatorio virtual realizado el 21 de Septiembre de 2020, en conmemoración del Día Internacional de Lucha contra los Monocultivos de Árboles. Organizado por la Red Latinoamericana contra los Monocultivos de Árboles (Recoma).

Chile was to be the host of the UN Climate Summit. But in the face of a massive popular uprising against the neoliberal economic model, Chile cancelled the Summit and it was moved to Spain, yet Chile retained the Presidency of the COP.

The Network of Women’s Organizations of Tirúa, in south central Chile, is deploying strategies for life to prevail in this region. This territory has been threatened by the massive invasion of tree plantations, which state policies continue to promote.

The campaign, “Territorial Voices on the MAPA Project: Testimonies about the mega-expansion of Celulosa Arauco,” seeks to shine a light on testimonies about the impacts of this project that aims to triple the production of the Celuloca Arauco plant in Chile. The Ojo de Treile Collective has produced a series of micro audiovisual capsules to take a stand against the most ambitious plantation industry project in the history of the country, which is threatening to further interfere with forests and ancestral territories.

On September 28, the Chilean courts ruled in favor of the Ignacio Huilipán community, located in the Contulmo Commune, Bío Bío region.

Forest peoples’ knowledge and practices of the use and management of controlled fire in forests have been identified within climate change policies as the cause of forest fires. Nevertheless, fire is critical for ensuring the food and cultural sovereignty of forest peoples.

Tree plantation companies have enormous power and impunity in Chile. The fires of 2017 demonstrated the collusion between these companies and public officials to prevent investigations and criminalize the Mapuche indigenous people

Transgenic Trees Will Expand the Disaster of Tree Plantations. Already in Chile monoculture plantations of pine and eucalyptus are producing terrible impacts on rural communities, on people’s health, access to water, agriculture and forests.