Reportajes

This week, the Council for the Defense of Patagonia (CDP), through its executive secretary, Patricio Rodrigo, was invited by the Special Commission on Tourism of the lower chamber of Chile’s Congress to speak about the negative impacts of the HidroAysen project on tourism. At the same meeting, the vice-president of HidroAysen, Daniel Fernandez, was also invited but he did not attend. 

As Chile’s once-lucrative salmon farming industry tries to rebound from the widespread damage caused by the infectious salmon anemia (ISA) virus over the past two years, it has set its sights on new, still mostly pristine and virus-free waters further south on the Patagonian coast.

The best way to enjoy and get to know a glacier is to walk on top of it. That is our experience from our trip to the glacier Torre in Argentinean Patagonia.

A nadie sorprendió la dura crítica que, finalizando 2009, la Comisión Agua y Vida del Vicariato Apostólico de Aysén hiciera a las empresas HidroAysén y Energía Austral por su política de responsabilidad social empresarial, o RSE.   “No pueden servir a Dios y al dinero”[1] fue el título de la carta que se enviara a todas las comunidades católicas y establecimientos educacionales dependientes de la curia, como una forma de impulsar una profunda reflexión ética sobre lo que está ocurriendo desde que las hidroeléctricas pusieran sus ojos en la Patagonia con el objeto de construir, por lo bajo, 8 represas.

 

In 1964 I made my very first hike into the Andean mountain range of South America. The towering crags of the Paine Massif, in Patagonia, was an awesome place to start. That my "welcoming committee" happened to be a splendid entourage of eight full-grown condors was extraordinary. I do not flatter myself that they came soaring in to greet me with any sort of friendly "saludos." Being raptors, they were out cruising for carrion as usual, and spotted my body, relaxing on a high ledge. For them it was the sign on a butcher shop: "FRESH MEAT TODAY!" Circling in to inspect the goods, they got a little too close; I jumped up, back to life, waving and shouting, and they gently floated off. In the ensuing years, I've had scores of sightings and encounters with condors, but never one quite so intimate.