Background on the Issue

Pollution from the forestry industry - paper, pulp and lumber - and a proposed 750-megawatt coal plant threatens Chile's coastline where numerous surf breaks and agricultural lands dot a rural landscape.

This gorgeous but unprotected coastline has for generations supported a thriving agricultural and wine-growing culture. Enter the forestry companies, some of Chile's most influential export-oriented industries, which convert wood from tree farms (mostly low-grade pine and eucalyptus grown in massive industrial "forests" at the expense of millions of acres of native forest) into pulp for paper products, construction timber, and plywood that is exported to USA, Europe and Asia. Several of Chile's largest pulp mills are in this region and have already had major water pollution events destroy estuarine and marine ecosystems from poor environmental oversight of their operations.

The production of pulp and lumber releases large amounts of chlorine-based chemicals, including highly toxic dioxins, into the atmosphere and nearby water supplies. The effects of these mills is devastating both to the local farming and tourism economies and the long-term health of international water resources such as coastal waters, fresh water sources and migratory bird habitat.

In 2008 another threat to the region surfaced: one of Chile's largest proposed coal fired power plants, Los Robles, designed to deliver 750mW to the national electricity grid. This coal plant is planned to be built directly on the beach at Punta Pacoco, a remote pointbreak that would disappear under the coal plant's loading pier receiving shipments of pulverized Australian coal. Acid rain, mercury poisoning of water, coal ash dumps and devastated local fisheries are some of the many drastic problems associated with coal plants. Save The Waves is working closely with Waterkeeper Alliance and FIMA against the coal problems in Chile and produced an award-winning short film about the community struggle against coal in Chile: Keeping Coast.

Save The Waves became a founding partner, together with FIMA (Fiscalia del Medio Ambiente), of Chile's first Waterkeeper Alliance member: the Maule Itata Coastkeeper. Save The Waves is now funding the majority of this program's work in Chile's Maule and Bio Bio Regions through the opening of a local office and environmental advocacy center run by a full-time Chilean activist known as the Coastkeeper. The Maule Itata Coastkeeper is responsible for protecting and monitoring the environmental health of this region's coastal waters and to represent the environmental interests of local coastal communities. Some of the critical issues to be tackled by this new program include over-fishing, forestry industry pollution, the coal power plant, raw sewage, pesticides runoff, over-development from urbanization and encroaching roads in sensitive coastal areas. Coastkeeper's vision is "Clean Water and Strong Communities."

Save The Waves is working in partnership to organize events and stewardship activities to raise public awareness of the growing problem of coastal industrial pollution threatening Chile's relatively unprotected coast. Save The Waves sponsors environmental advocacy seminars designed to empower local citizens of coastal Chile with the tools necessary to stop industrial pollution and protect water quality.Pollution from the forestry industry - paper, pulp and lumber - and a proposed 750-megawatt coal plant threatens Chile's coastline where numerous surf breaks and agricultural lands dot a rural landscape.