Pinochet's Constitution Utterly Privatizes Water; Reality Of Drought Widening Chile's Social Cracks
From the Atacama Desert to Patagonia, a 13-year megadrought is straining Chile’s freshwater resources to breaking point. By the end of 2021, the fourth driest year on record, more than half of Chile’s 19 million population lived in an area suffering from “severe water scarcity”, and in April an unprecedented water rationing plan was announced for the capital, Santiago. In hundreds of rural communities in the centre and north of the country, Chileans are forced to rely on emergency tankers to deliver drinking water. Chile’s water crisis was high on the agenda when, in 2019, millions of protesters took to the streets to demand that the country confront its entrenched inequalities. Among their demands – which ranged from better pensions to healthcare reform – the slogan “it’s not drought, it’s theft” was a common refrain.
Many called for a rewrite of Chile’s 1981 water code, a relic of Gen Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973-1990) which enshrines one of the most privatised water systems in the world, allowing people to buy and sell water allocations like stocks. Chile is also the only country in the world that specifically says in its constitution that water rights are treated as private property. Before his election last year, Gabriel Boric, Chile’s progressive new president, promised a green future for the country, emphasising the protection and restoration of hydrological cycles.
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In 2010, the rights to the water feeding the lake were legally acquired by large agricultural plantations and private estates, which siphoned off the main tributaries. Valleys around the basin passed from annual crops to summer homes and water-intensive fruit tree plantations. As the area transitioned from agriculture to tourism and then went into steep decline, locals were forced to find work in the gated holiday communities – or move to Santiago. “I used to supply all of the markets and communities in the area,” said Alfonso Ortíz, 73, a farmer who once employed several workers to grow watermelons, pumpkins, corn and oranges using water from the lagoon. “Agriculture here is dead. There’s nothing left,” he said.
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Supported by the private rights system, about 59% of the country’s water resources are dedicated to forestry, despite it making up just 3% of Chile’s GDP. Another 37% is destined for the agricultural sector, meaning only 2% of Chile’s water is set aside for human consumption. "If they diverted your river to grow fruit and avocados to sell to foreigners – and now they’re bringing you water in tankers – how would you feel?” asked García-Chevesich . “It’s humiliating and undignified.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/01/chiles-water-crisis-megadrought-reaching-breaking-point
