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Author: Samantha Flax

Co-authors: Alannah Giannino, Judy Wooley, Jonathan Idrovo

Fires in Chile as seen by Suomi NPP on January 20, 2017. Credit: NASA/NOAA/DoD

 

In January of 2017 Chile was struck with a series of devastating wild fires. These fires killed eleven people, destroyed almost two thousand homes, and thousands of acres of land. While the fire chiefs insist that there were many factors that caused these fires, environmental activists point to one main cause. They argue that the problem, like most in Chile, stems from policies enacted during the Pinochet regime that have never been addressed. In 1974, a government decree subsidized seventy percent of plantation costs. This helped to establish the importance of the forestry industry in Chile. Over the following decades, even after the return to democracy, the industry received eight hundred million dollars of tax payer money. This money mainly goes to the two largest forestry companies. As a result of the importance of plantations to the economy, there are very few regulations surrounding plantations– only that a prevention and management plan in case of fire be in place. When zoning plantations, firebreaks, which would prevent the spread of the flames into residential areas, are not required. Executives like Kimber defend these companies by saying they helped Chile recover from the socialist dictatorship. According to Sara Lorrain, a former presidential candidate, there are no evaluations of risk factors, and important precautions, such as fire breaks, are not used. These plantations, with trees that are predisposed to burning due to their thin limbs, reach to the edge of towns, making it easy for fires to spread.

The remains of homes in Santa Olga, a small hamlet in the Maule region. Pablo Vera Lisperguer/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

 

This is not the first time that fires have damaged Chilean land. Destructive fires also ravaged the country in 2014. Furthermore, despite the industry that likely caused the fires being so lucrative to the economy, the people in the communities that host these plantations are some of the poorest in the country. This is demonstrated in both Maule and La Araucania, two towns with high unemployment and poverty rates. Residents in the area, who have minimal access to potable water, resorted to fighting the fire with free branches and water bottles.

Hualañé, in central Chile, on Saturday. Cristobal Hernandez/Reuters

 

As many activists point out, more regulations need to be enacted because these fires will increase as climate change causes a hotter and dryer Chile.

 

Facts:

What are some of the reasons that the wildfires may have spread so fast?

Relaxed policies around timber farms, such as not requiring a fire break, as well as the plantations’ proximity to towns. Additionally, the trees themselves are dry and have expansive branches, which facilitates a fast spread of fire. 

What two towns are demonstrative of the wealth disparity within Chile?

Maule and La Araucania are demonstrative of the wealth disparity in Chile.

 

Sources:

Kozak, Piotr. (2017, March 3). Did Pinochet-era deregulation cause Chile’s worst-ever wildfires? The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/03/chile-wildfires-forestry-industry-plantations)

Bonnefoy, Pascale and Chan, Sewell. (2017, Jan 25). ‘The Greatest Forest Disaster in Our History’: Wildfires Tear Through Chile. New York Times. (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/world/americas/chile-wildfires.html)

 

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Author: Alannah Giannino

Co-Authors: Jonathan Idrovo, Judy Wooley, Samantha Flax

 

In the northeastern region of Chile, right next to the Argentinean border, there exists a large expanse of salt. Salar de Atacama contains large deposits of lithium, known as ‘white gold’. The flats in Chile are one part of a so-called ‘Lithium Triangle’ which also contains Bolivia and Argentina. Though the large amount present was discovered in the early sixties, it wasn’t until a decade later that Pinochet claimed rights to the land and formed a free trade relationship with Foote Mineral, a western mining company, after its usefulness in nuclear technology was discovered. Then, he placed his son-in-law Julio Ponce Lerue in control of the supervising of privatization operations– a position of power he held until 2015, when he was forced to step down from Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (SMQ) following allegations of illegal share trading. For decades, thousands of tons of lithium were mined and exported from the lands, ancestral to the indigenous Atacamas, without any compensation. Only recently did the local communities begin to receive any sort of recompense for the mining. The salt flats are also considered part of Pachamama– adding insult to the environmental injury already occurring, as evidenced by the shrinking expanse of the flats on the Chilean side of the border.

Lithium today

As the world becomes more reliant on technology, the demand and asking price for this light metal has increased heavily. Lithium powers the batteries in electronic devices like cellphones, laptops, and electronic cars. Additionally, lithium is being hailed as a ‘cleaner’ alternative to petroleum as electric cars gain popularity (Sanderson 2016). Though Chile has long been a main source of Lithium, due to the trade deals which arose during Pinochet’s regime, as well as a ‘perfect climate’ which reduces extraction costs by allowing the endless sunshine in the flats to do most of the work, nearby salt flats in Argentina and Bolivia are being tapped for contracts as well. As demand for the resource increases, foreign mining companies require more and more land. Though the exact path to each company is hard to trace, most foreign outfits are sourcing lithium for tech brands like Apple, Toyota, and Samsung. Tesla especially is in the market for large swaths of the mineral, considering that the design of their electric cars requires about three pounds of it per car (Frankel, Whoriskey 2016).

Ivan Alvarado / Reuters

A worker protects his face from the sun as he inspects machinery at the Rockwood Lithium plant on the Atacama salt flat, the largest lithium deposit currently in production, in the Atacama desert of northern Chile, on Jan. 8, 2013.

 

A Canadian-Chilean company on the Apple supply chain, Minera Exar, recently made a deal with six indigenous Chilean and Argentinian communities wherein they will receive an annual stipend no more than 60,000 dollars for access to land and water– though the company is expected to make hundreds of millions of dollars in profit. The Washington post quotes a leader of one community saying, “We know the lithium companies are taking millions of dollars from our lands “[…] “The companies are conscious of this. And we know they ought to give something back. But they’re not” (2016). Additionally, the communities in the Atacama salt flats already suffer from a shortage of water– which lithium mining requires large amounts of in order to extract from the salt brine.

An aerial view shows the brine pools and roads of the Soquimich (SQM) lithium mine on the Atacama salt flat, the largest lithium deposit currently in production, in the Atacama desert of northern Chile, January 10, 2013. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

 

Though companies say that the local communities haven’t resisted the mining efforts, there are protest banners hanging at the local airport, as well as within communities– One saying, “We don’t eat batteries, They take the water, life is gone”. One argument for the expansion of mining is that it will bring jobs to communities and companies will pay the towns for their land. Because of the remote location of the evaporation pools, employees must be provided with housing, a hospital, and sunscreen, among other amenities. Though the mining companies boast about the aid they provide– building new schools, paying for dental work, and providing microloans to the communities– indigenous leaders express concern about the long-term impacts of the mines– exhausting an already limited water supply, possibly polluting the land, and leaving the area in detriment once the mines are exhausted in twenty or forty years.

Summary/Factoids

What countries are part of the so-called ‘Lithium Triangle’?
Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia

Why are locals concerned about the presence of the mines?

Not only does the extraction process siphon away gargantuan amounts of water from already depleted sources– The foreign companies are also gaining millions of dollars in profit without sufficient compensation to the indigenous groups.

 

 

Works Cited:

Frankel, Todd and Whoriskey, Peter. 2016. “Tossed Aside in the ‘White Gold’ Rush”. The Washington Post. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/tossed-aside-in-the-lithium-rush/)

Sanderson, Henry. 2016. “Lithium: Chile’s Buried Treasure” Financial Times. (https://www.ft.com/content/cde8f984-43c7-11e6-b22f-79eb4891c97d)