Less than a week ago, Participa wrote in this same space on the bitter situation in which the voice of the public had not been heard, regarding the construction of the Barrancones coal-fired power plant had been approved in the Punta de Choros nature reserve. In his presidential campaign, then candidate Sebastián Piñera had opposed this plan explicitly, but the fifteen officials that he had designated to vote on the decision this past Tuesday, August 24 gave their support for the project. What?! In truth it was the chronicle of a pre-announced death. However, the community did not give up for even a moment. Having prepared for such a result, protest activities resumed, now directly demanding that the President fulfill his campaign promise, as in this area especially he had won votes based on this promise.

There were simultaneous peaceful protest marches in several cities throughout the country, social networking sites burned with comments regarding the affair, and several public figures joined the cause and took advantage of their respective spaces on TV to adhere to the people’s protests. In Participa, our team mobilized on several fronts: some attended the marches, while others wrote newspaper columns. Several newspapers published these articles: in the links below, three of these articles can be seen, and the English versions of two of these articles have been attached.

There were two approaches to be taken: request the national director of the National Commission on the Environment (CONAMA, for its Spanish acronym) to revoke the decision, and as a last resort, to take the case to court and make it into a legal issue.

However, the public and media stir was such that something occurred which nobody had considered: the President negotiated directly with the company (although the terms of this negotiation are not known), resulting in the cancellation of the project. And as the transfer of location would mean starting a brand new process in the SEIA, Suez Energy simply will not build the coal-fired power plant in Punta de Choros, or anywhere else in Chie.

This is quite an achievement for the public, and a great victory for the Movement in Defense of the Environment (MODEMA, for its Spanish acronym) of Los Choros, and partners of the TAI coalition in Chile. They used all the resources available to them by law, knocked on all the doors that they could, and worked in alliances to be able to spread the word. This is great news for Chile and for TAI, as in this case the Advocacy Strategy Toolkit developed by the network was applied, and without a doubt represented a major contribution to this achievement.

However, together with the joy over this remarkable victory, some concerns still remain. Although the central objective was achieved, as the power plant will NOT be built, the institutional functionality left much to be desired. The formal process for public participation in the SEIA did not work, the observations provided by the public were not considered, and in the end the project was only halted outside of the formal administrative channels. The President put an end to the project that his Minister of the Environment had adamantly defended only two hours before, thus significantly undermining her credibility with the public and the private sector regarding decisions that are to be made in other new coal-fired power projects that are being considered.

Last January in Chile a significant modification to environmental legislation and institutionality was passed. The challenge is for this case to not remain as merely an anecdote; rather we must learn lessons from it and take advantage of the situation in order to establish more truly open, transparent and inclusive processes for the evaluation of environmental impacts, so that these are aimed squarely at sustainable development.

To see the newspaper columns published during this process, go to:

http://www.lanacion.cl/desarrollo-sostenible-del-dicho-al-he...

http://www.elmostrador.cl/opinion/2010/08/25/punta-de-choros...

http://www.latercera.com/noticia/opinion/correos-de-los-lect...