Coalition Spotlight: Ríos Protegidos
Earth Law Center (ELC) is proud to announce joining the Ríos Protegidos initiative, which seeks to strengthen the protection of Chile’s rivers by applying existing tools, recognizing gaps and opportunities in river conservation and restoration, and promoting new legislation on protected and restored rivers.
On February 22, 2024, ELC’s Latin America Legal Program participated in a workshop to promote the conservation and permanent restoration of rivers in the Aysén region—a huge, sparsely populated area in southern Chile that is home to volcanoes, massive ice fields, and other natural wonders.
Coyhaique, Chile. Photo credit: Palicp. Public domain.
The Ríos Protegidos workshop, held in the regional capital of Coyhaique, took place with the support of Patagonia Chile. More than 50 people, including scientists, researchers, teachers, artisanal fishermen, and athletes, took part. An intersectoral panel, including Gabriel Benoit, an expert fly fishing athlete and ambassador of Patagonia, and Jaime Lancaster, a local community member and kayaker with more than ten years of experience, led the workshop. The panel also included expert environmental lawyers who are members of the coalition: Ricardo Frez, Director of the NGO "Defensa Ambiental"; Pía Weber, Freshwater Expert at the Pew Charitable Trust; and Bastián Núñez, attorney at ELC.
Left to right: Pía Weber, Freshwater Expert at the Pew Charitable Trust; Bastián Núñez, attorney at Earth Law Center; Ricardo Frez, Director of the NGO "Defensa Ambiental.”
The event began with a showing of this wonderful introductory video detailing the “Ríos Protegidos" initiative. Then, Ricardo Frez talked about NGO Defensa Ambiental’s experience working to protect rivers in the Ñuble and Biobío region, which face problems such as the extraction of aggregates from the river watershed, the construction of dams and hydroelectric infrastructure, the installation of thermoelectric projects, and more. Later, Pía Weber explained the legal framework for protecting Chilean rivers and the mechanisms that authorities and the civil population demand to conserve their water quantity and quality of this riparian ecosystem.
The workshop set a collaborative dynamic, such that the audience participated in the analysis of case studies, contributing ideas for possible protection mechanisms based on their perspectives and connections with the Patagonian rivers. At the end of this activity, Gabriel Benoit and Jaime Lancaster emphasized the importance of caring for and developing the bond between Nature and society.
ELC celebrates the interdisciplinary work of the Ríos Protegidos. We support initiatives such as these, wherein we can hear the voices of the rivers through their riparian communities. Such collaborative explorations seek to unify forces and knowledge to promote legislative and policy transformations in order to adopt and implement effective mechanisms for the permanent protection of rivers.
Earth Law Center reaffirms its commitment, made at the 2024 UN Water Conference, to advance “Earth-centered legal initiatives [to] provide mechanisms to ensure that natural systems do not collapse… seeking the incorporation of standards and laws to guarantee the necessary support for the health of ecosystems in accordance with Nature's needs.”
