Aysen: The battle over Los Maquis
Complaints and criticisms continue to pour down on the Los Maquis hydroelectric project, sited on the shores of Lake General Carrera just 5 kilometers from the tranquil town of Puerto Guadal in the Aysen region of Chilean Patagonia.
Initiated in January 2020, Edelaysén is moving forward with the construction of a 1 megawatt ( MW) mini- hydroelectric power plant without any environmental impact assessment over the fierce objections of residents who have come together under the banner of the citizen group “Los Mauqis Libre” (Free Maquis). Among their concerns about the project include the impacts on local water resources and biodiversity and the destruction of the scenic Los Maquis waterfall, a tourist destination inside a “Zona de Interés Turístico,” a legal designation given by Chile’s tourism ministry to valuable cultural and natural areas which normally ought to provide some degree of protection.
Edelaysén, which is part of the Canadian- owned Saesa group, is responsible for the generation and distribution of electricity for several provinces in the Aysen region. It also has power plants elsewhere in southern Chile. Their Los Maquis project was halted from March 2020 to January 2021 due to the pandemic, but work has resumed, raising new ire.
The company argues that the project is environmentally friendly because it does not use fossil fuels and does not require dams or large transmission lines. And the government’s regional environmental authorities also agree that the project does not require a formal environmental impact study because it will not generate more than 3 MW of energy.
“This project is just 1 MW,” assured Leonardo Morán, zonal manager of Edelaysén, in the online newspaper Diario Regional Aysén.
However, citizens and environmentalists have filed two appeals in Chile’s environmental courts, while pumping up the volume over social networks over the past year. Most recently, Chilean actress Juanita Ringeling filmed a video denouncing the project that was shared and viewed by hundreds of thousands of Chileans.
Patricio Segura, a spokesperson for Los Maquis Libre, emphasized to Patagon Journal that the threatened Los Maquis waterfall area “is an emblematic and very important sector for local culture, biodiversity that clearly could be an example of tourism development in a different way.”