Patricio Segura Ortiz, journalist, environmental leader, and one of Patagonia's fiercest defenders, died on August 21, 2026, at the Hospital Guillermo Grant Benavente in Concepción, Chile, after being airlifted from Coyhaique with hantavirus. He was 54. His family announced the news simply: "With great sorrow, we tell you that our beloved dad and Pato passed away today." It is a tremendous loss for everyone who cares about Patagonia, its environment, and the people who call it home.
Patricio was born in Iquique, in Chile's far north, and studied journalism at the Universidad Católica del Norte in Antofagasta, graduating with distinction in communication sciences. In the mid-1990s he moved south to Coyhaique, in the Aysén region, and it was there — in the valleys, rivers, and fjords of Chilean Patagonia — that he found the cause that would define the rest of his life.
For 15 years, Patricio wrote for Patagon Journal, from investigative reports to opinion columns, and he never held back, even when it meant criticizing his own movement. His byline also appeared regularly in CIPER, El Mostrador, Le Monde Diplomatique, El Ciudadano, La Nación, Cooperativa, El Desconcierto, El Divisadero, and El Periodista. He was also published in the international science journals Science and Nature. His subjects ranged widely: mining pollution, salmon farming, water law, glaciers, corruption, tourism, and the socio-environmental conflicts that came with it all, always with Patagonia at the center.
Patricio was, above all, an organizer as much as a chronicler. He was a key communicator for the Patagonia Sin Represas campaign, the years-long fight that helped stop HidroAysén's plans to dam the Baker and Pascua rivers with a string of five megadams — one of the defining environmental victories in Chile's recent history. He helped found and promote Aysén Reserva de Vida, sat on the board of the Council for the Defense of Patagonia, and led the Corporación Privada para el Desarrollo de Aysén (CODESA). He also worked part-time for the national group Chile Sustentable. Within Chile's Colegio de Periodistas, he served as regional president for Aysén and later as a national counselor, pushing the profession toward freedom of expression and decentralized, independent media — the same principles he lived by as a writer.
In 2021, Patricio ran as a candidate for Chile's constitutional convention, campaigning for an ecological constitution — one where principles like the rights of nature, water as a human right, and the precautionary principle would run through the whole document rather than sit in a single article. He was clear about what he saw as the cost of the status quo, describing thirty years of Chilean environmental policy as underwriting “a great pyramid scheme,” one that treated nature as an extractable resource while ignoring the communities and ecosystems left to absorb the damage.
His penetrating critiques were a throughline in everything he wrote. He rejected “green capitalism” — insisting instead that the environmental movement in Patagonia follow a different vision of development rooted in the participation of local communities. He argued that common goods — a watershed, an ice field, a river — were not appropriable, not by corporations and not even by the communities who lived alongside them, and that mining dependency worked “like an addiction” — leaving communities unable to walk away once they were hooked on the wages. And in one of his last columns for this magazine, he wrote what might be the clearest statement of what he believed a mostly pristine Patagonia was owed: that however laudable the impulse to protect it, "this land could not be a bargaining chip for outside interests, nor a way to launder the environmental sins" committed elsewhere.
Patricio's final column, published August 12 after his wife was hospitalized, was not about policy at all. Titled "Awaiting Your Gift” — it was a love letter to his wife, Miriam Chible, a social and environmental leader in her own right, who had contracted hantavirus alongside him and remained in intensive care in Concepción at the time of his death. "Your coming home will be the best birthday gift you could ever give me. I love you, my Miriam.”
Our condolences go to his family, and most of all to Miriam. We are forever grateful for his words, his kindness, and his example.
Rest in power, Pato.
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Below are excerpts from a 2022 interview we did with Patricio for our 10th anniversary issue, in which he gives his top environmental priorities for the Patagonia region for the rest of this decade.
Patagon Journal: What do you think are the priorities for protecting Patagonia in the next 10 years?
Patricio Segura: The first thing should be strong territorial and maritime planning. We need to generate a regional conversation about how we are going to define the territory. Because productive projects, such as mining, salmon farming, energy, and plantations, in a certain way, represent a critique of the traditional model in Patagonia.
In relation to the fragmentation of territory, bringing it to the subject of nature, there is pressure. The pandemic and telework allowed people to move to rural areas, and that led to the fragmentation of rural land. New communities and urban centers are being created, which puts a lot of pressure on all services.
Basically, new towns are being created, and this is happening outside of collective and state planning. It is the market that is currently deciding where new towns are created, without taking responsibility for the macro discussion: how and where firewood comes from, energy, where the waste goes, etc.
Right now, it is the market—specifically the real estate sector—that is determining the new urban centers, and we consider this to be outside the law. But there is no political will from the Ministry of Housing, the Ministry of Agriculture, or the municipalities to address this issue. That's why I talk about territorial planning: the pressure here in the Aysén region has multiplied exponentially in recent years. I think that is an important point for the next decade; there is an issue of population pressure.
What we believe is that there is first a process in the discussion; there are issues related to trying to put a stop, seeking legal and administrative instruments so that the law regarding land subdivisions is enforced. The law indicates that new urban centers cannot be segregated outside of state planning, and that should be overseen by the Ministry of Housing. What is happening now is that there are subdivisions of 100 plots, and new urban centers are being created where no one is overseeing them. The Comptroller's Office should eliminate that type of subdivision.
The subdivisions that are created in areas of tourist interest (ZOIT) are also not complying with legal requirements, and the law clearly states that when subdivisions are generated, a report must be prepared about it.
How do you think territorial planning can be improved?
In the long term, what needs to be done is to modify legal agreements, but also the planning: to look at the territory and the new urban centers. Either we make certain cities grow with criteria of sustainability, or we simply agree to create a new urban center, but it must be a collective discussion. The Regional Government, the Municipality, the inhabitants of the territory, and if they want, the real estate companies should all be part of the discussion. That is territorial planning.
There are now instruments because regulations have been established that make territorial planning binding. This is the opportunity to move forward on that, including the authority to oversee new urban centers. When more roads are built, waste begins to be massively generated, water is extracted, and a series of ecosystem impacts arise.
Furthermore, Patagonia is not only being watched by Chile, but by the whole world. And there we enter another discussion, which is the philanthropic offensive at a global level that sees Patagonia as a place that must be protected. People perceive that conservation is being imposed on them without real mechanisms for participation, and I say this as an environmental activist.
What other issues in the Aysén region concern you most at this moment?
Here, we don’t see environmental issues as green capitalism. We see it as the legitimate vision of a different development and paradigm, with different views. Ultimately, when the public sector begins to be financed and granted in concessions, it generates social unrest, because there is a sense of discrimination and inequality. I know that the issue of private parks is an American concept that works there, but it doesn’t sit well with me, and I think that should be part of a deep debate.
People who live in the region must be involved in these issues; they must participate. And also the existing organizations, such as ZOIT corporations and neighborhood associations. What must prevail are not particular interests. The collective visions through organizations of various kinds are what’s important.
Aysén and Patagonia in general are not a pantry nor a platform for external interests. We must understand and set limits: there are common goods that are not appropriable. Not because the Northern Patagonian Ice Fields are intact are we in Aysén going to hold a referendum to sell them. I don't think common goods are appropriable, not even by the locality. But yes, the people who live in the territory should have a little more weight in the conversation. What cannot happen is for outsiders to dictate how things should be.
How can Aysén confront the environmental threats from the mining sector?
Mining is like an addiction, it makes the community depend on this activity, so people get used to the good salary, and they don't want to give that up. So once mining is installed, it can never be removed, because it has a social and general system that does not guarantee rights. If you have a society where people already have access to good health care, good education, common goods such as water, energy, etc., if a mining company then comes and says I'm going to settle here, people could decide why those resources would be guaranteed. So, the discussion is not only environmental, but also social.
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