Chilean Patagonia News

This past Saturday, June 5, colleagues in Chile marked the annual International Day for the Environment (el Día Internacional del Medioambiente) with a nationwide day of action.

This is the second time in less than a year that a nationwide action has been organized against the development of mega-hydroelectric projects in Patagonia.  read more »

With its glacier-carved peaks and fjords, southern Chile remains one of the wildest places on Earth. But that could soon change.  read more »

Twenty-three hundred kilometres of transmission lines, to be built by Transelec Chile SA (investors include the CPP Investment Board, the British Columbia Investment Management Corp. and Toronto conglomerate Brookfield Asset Management Inc.), would require the world's longest clear-cut up through the heart of Patagonia's untouched temperate forests.

Environmental activists say it would be nothing less than a social and ecological disaster. Sixty-four communities and 14 protected areas would be directly affected. Tens of thousands of acres of valley, forest, and farmland would be flooded or razed.  read more »

A recent article in Pique highlights concerns about the involvement of the Canadian-owned company Transelec in a hydro electric project in Chile’s Patagonia region. The project, which plans to build five dams and 2,300 km of transmission lines with a parallel highway that would pass through 14 legally protected natural areas, has been criticized by environmentalists in the country and around the world, as well as business leaders.  read more »

A multi-million PR blitz by the owners of HidroAysen had little impact in making the project attractive to the region's 11 Senate candidates.  read more »

 Long a source of serious environmental concerns, Chile’s controversial HidroAysén dam project is now being questioned along technical lines as well. Despite its billing as a “national priority,” critics say that from a basic supply and demand perspective, the multi-billion-dollar hydroelectric plan is simply unnecessary. In fact, Probe International made this very point in a June 17 letter to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.  read more »

Probe International is calling on the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Investment Board to halt its investment in a controversial hydro transmission project in Chile’s Patagonia region. The CPP is currently listed as an investor in a 1,500-mile (2,400 kilometres) transmission project designed to handle power from five proposed hydroelectric dams in the Chilean Patagonia.  read more »

In a letter submitted yesterday to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, environmental group Probe International urged CEO David Denison to abandon a controversial hydro-transmission scheme in southern Chile’s Patagonia region.  read more »

Early this morning the nonprofit environmental organization International Rivers flew a giant "Dam Home Depot" banner over the company's annual shareholder meeting in Atlanta. Protesters also unfurled a banner and raised questions inside the shareholder's meeting, asking Home Depot executives to account for their role in supporting the destruction of Patagonia.  read more »

La eléctrica dijo que la firma que trabaja en la línea de transmisión hizo las solicitudes como medida de precaución.  read more »