Contra Celco: Citizen Movement in Los Molinos
Today I participated for the first time at a community meeting in our small fishing village organized by a group of impassioned activist students, Mapuche leaders, and local subsistence fishermen. On this rainy afternoon, a group of 20 or so came together as a community in a room owned by the fishermen union of Los Molinos, constructed on wooden stilts with a wall of windows looking out above the working pier. Much of the meeting was dedicated to exploring our own diversity, special interests, and stereotypes for each other, the floor often getting away from the young student in charge of keeping speakers in order, but organically we eventually fell into common ground on the issues of contamination and the impacts felt both physically and spiritually within the borders of our small bay and up the coastline.
The general goal of the meeting was to raise awareness among the coastal community of the growing and continuing threat of pollution generated by the Chile-based, largest forestry company in South America, Arauco (Celco) who, among other polluting industries in the area, sends toxic waste water down river to the ocean and billows of carbon gases into the atmosphere, directly impacting local plant and marine-based ecosystems. Celco’s factory outside of Valdivia began operations in early 2004 as just one of several pulp mills operated by the company in Chile, which collectively produce the third largest amount of wood chips and paper pulp in the world, materials essential to satisfy the insatiable paper-product needs of especially the Asian, North American, and European markets. The industry thrives on massive tree plantations of foreign, fast-growing pine and eculyptus species, which encroach on the unique, temperate rainforests of southern Chile, create ecological dead-zones for native wildlife, and shed toxic pesticides throughout their growth. In the conversion process, Celco applies enormous amounts of toxic chemicals necessary to breakdown the large, mature tree matter into wood chips and pulp, which are then simply flushed out as waste water directly into area rivers meant to channel the toxins to the ocean.
In the case of the Valdivia factory, Celco’s waste water dumped in the Cruces River was heavily absorbed by the vegetation of the Carlos Anwandter Nature Sanctuary wetlands before reaching Valdivia and the ocean at the coastal fishing villages of Niebla and Los Molinos. The excessive pollutants and chemicals in the Nature Sanctuary led to the sudden destruction of plant life, including the main food source of southern Chile’s once largest population of black-necked swans. Within a few months of the Celco’s factory opening in 2004, hundreds of these beautiful swans were found dead from starvation in the Sanctuary and in the backyards of Valdivian residents as they wandered ashore seeking food. Many other hundreds migrated away in search of food. Protests ignited national debate and sanctions were proposed against the forestry giant, which closed factory production for several weeks at the peak of the public outcry. However, after re-examination the government soon approved Celco’s standards as in-line with Chile’s minimum environmental protection levels and without any change in filtration or waste-water management, Celco returned to full pulp-production in 2005. Soon afterward large chemical stains were regularly seen in the river from the bridges of Valdivia and local fishermen began noticing the stunted growth of once abundant shellfish beds at the river-mouth.
Currently, the forestry giant’s proposed solution is to channel their waste-water directly to the ocean through a duct to be placed at the fishing village of Mehuin (north of Los Molinos) on a sacred Mapuche religious site, a proposal that the community of Mehuin has fought against for the past 10 years. Celco claims that this proposal is the most efficient and refuses the development of a zero-discharge, internal waste-water cleaning and recycling system, as used in the Finnish pulp mills where environmental integrity is highly-regulated, as too costly. Frustrated by the arrogance of the forestry giant, the compliance of the government, and Chile’s growing burden of local contamination for international products (ironically, paper products in Chile such as print materials and notepaper are outrageously expensive to purchase), activists are calling for the closure of Celco’s pulp mills and national seizure of the tree plantations. Although this political goal may be extreme and unlikely (and personally I’d much rather pressure Celco toward the costly internal waste-water management system), given the alternatives where a government sells national land to corporations with powerful foreign investors and then relaxes environmental controls on that land in the face of political pressure, what else can young Chilean activists, coming to age as the first generation not living under daily fear of a military dictatorship, hope to achieve?
So, eventually our community meeting came down to that point, that the people of Los Molinos stand by the coastal community of Mehuin in defending their environment and way of life as equally as our own. We decided to distribute signs to be posted in the street-facing windows of houses, restaurants, and stores that call for the end of the pollution and the closing of the forestry giant. I shared free copies of recent issues of El Ciudadano that have well-informed articles on the issues facing Mehuin and the political dealings of the Celco pulp mill (all themes I sketch out bi-monthly in my comic for the paper, No Sólo Cisnes), and I actually spoke up (my political will overcoming my personal nervousness to speak out-loud in my bumbling Spanish) to invite our fledgling group to participate in Chile’s up-coming national march for the environment, October 28, which everyone agreed was a good idea, immediately launching into planning a demonstration in Los Molinos with documentaries and a march.
Returning home to make a late lunch of fake-meat lasagna as the Spring rain continued to fall outside, I felt a new charge of energy to know that my own neighbors, so often quiet in their political thoughts, too busy untangling nets and setting out to fish at farther and farther distances, our lives so completely opposite, actually shared my sense of urgency at the environmental challenges facing southern Chile and the quickened pace at which outside influence is rapidly declining daily life. And for the first time I felt accepted within the community, certainly not for my limited grasp of the language and un-deniable foreignness, but for our shared understanding and desire to protect the unique beauty of this place. Now, to work on my protest sign to carry in the march….
The general goal of the meeting was to raise awareness among the coastal community of the growing and continuing threat of pollution generated by the Chile-based, largest forestry company in South America, Arauco (Celco) who, among other polluting industries in the area, sends toxic waste water down river to the ocean and billows of carbon gases into the atmosphere, directly impacting local plant and marine-based ecosystems. Celco’s factory outside of Valdivia began operations in early 2004 as just one of several pulp mills operated by the company in Chile, which collectively produce the third largest amount of wood chips and paper pulp in the world, materials essential to satisfy the insatiable paper-product needs of especially the Asian, North American, and European markets. The industry thrives on massive tree plantations of foreign, fast-growing pine and eculyptus species, which encroach on the unique, temperate rainforests of southern Chile, create ecological dead-zones for native wildlife, and shed toxic pesticides throughout their growth. In the conversion process, Celco applies enormous amounts of toxic chemicals necessary to breakdown the large, mature tree matter into wood chips and pulp, which are then simply flushed out as waste water directly into area rivers meant to channel the toxins to the ocean.
In the case of the Valdivia factory, Celco’s waste water dumped in the Cruces River was heavily absorbed by the vegetation of the Carlos Anwandter Nature Sanctuary wetlands before reaching Valdivia and the ocean at the coastal fishing villages of Niebla and Los Molinos. The excessive pollutants and chemicals in the Nature Sanctuary led to the sudden destruction of plant life, including the main food source of southern Chile’s once largest population of black-necked swans. Within a few months of the Celco’s factory opening in 2004, hundreds of these beautiful swans were found dead from starvation in the Sanctuary and in the backyards of Valdivian residents as they wandered ashore seeking food. Many other hundreds migrated away in search of food. Protests ignited national debate and sanctions were proposed against the forestry giant, which closed factory production for several weeks at the peak of the public outcry. However, after re-examination the government soon approved Celco’s standards as in-line with Chile’s minimum environmental protection levels and without any change in filtration or waste-water management, Celco returned to full pulp-production in 2005. Soon afterward large chemical stains were regularly seen in the river from the bridges of Valdivia and local fishermen began noticing the stunted growth of once abundant shellfish beds at the river-mouth.
Currently, the forestry giant’s proposed solution is to channel their waste-water directly to the ocean through a duct to be placed at the fishing village of Mehuin (north of Los Molinos) on a sacred Mapuche religious site, a proposal that the community of Mehuin has fought against for the past 10 years. Celco claims that this proposal is the most efficient and refuses the development of a zero-discharge, internal waste-water cleaning and recycling system, as used in the Finnish pulp mills where environmental integrity is highly-regulated, as too costly. Frustrated by the arrogance of the forestry giant, the compliance of the government, and Chile’s growing burden of local contamination for international products (ironically, paper products in Chile such as print materials and notepaper are outrageously expensive to purchase), activists are calling for the closure of Celco’s pulp mills and national seizure of the tree plantations. Although this political goal may be extreme and unlikely (and personally I’d much rather pressure Celco toward the costly internal waste-water management system), given the alternatives where a government sells national land to corporations with powerful foreign investors and then relaxes environmental controls on that land in the face of political pressure, what else can young Chilean activists, coming to age as the first generation not living under daily fear of a military dictatorship, hope to achieve?
So, eventually our community meeting came down to that point, that the people of Los Molinos stand by the coastal community of Mehuin in defending their environment and way of life as equally as our own. We decided to distribute signs to be posted in the street-facing windows of houses, restaurants, and stores that call for the end of the pollution and the closing of the forestry giant. I shared free copies of recent issues of El Ciudadano that have well-informed articles on the issues facing Mehuin and the political dealings of the Celco pulp mill (all themes I sketch out bi-monthly in my comic for the paper, No Sólo Cisnes), and I actually spoke up (my political will overcoming my personal nervousness to speak out-loud in my bumbling Spanish) to invite our fledgling group to participate in Chile’s up-coming national march for the environment, October 28, which everyone agreed was a good idea, immediately launching into planning a demonstration in Los Molinos with documentaries and a march.
Returning home to make a late lunch of fake-meat lasagna as the Spring rain continued to fall outside, I felt a new charge of energy to know that my own neighbors, so often quiet in their political thoughts, too busy untangling nets and setting out to fish at farther and farther distances, our lives so completely opposite, actually shared my sense of urgency at the environmental challenges facing southern Chile and the quickened pace at which outside influence is rapidly declining daily life. And for the first time I felt accepted within the community, certainly not for my limited grasp of the language and un-deniable foreignness, but for our shared understanding and desire to protect the unique beauty of this place. Now, to work on my protest sign to carry in the march….
posted by Carol Bushar at 8:32 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home