In addition to these non-transparent developer tactics, the Chilean government’s apparent contradiction against itself in terms of national image and tourism promotion further complicates hydro’s presence in Chile. According to Gonzalez “if you calculate how much investment the government has done in [Futaleufú] in tourism, it’s huge, so if they allowed a dam to be built in the river, they are destroying their own investment…They want both things, they want to look good but they want money.” This illogicality is an important consideration for resistance movements, as increased international attention upon a hydro development has the potential to apply enough political influence to outweigh economic motivations. However, in light of dilemmas such as information containment, lack of trans-regional support, and a common deficiency in opposition funding, it is difficult to perceive how Chile’s international image could be jeopardized to this point, especially as internally its citizens are not united in hydro resistance. Furthermore, as the Chilean administration and thus all regional governments change every four years, developing cohesive and long-term policy adaptation is grim. Ultimately, effectiveness of social resistance to river development and broader challenges to policy, relies upon sustained local momentum. Fierro depicts this idea in reference to attaining developers’ attention: “It’s better to start with something on a local level, it’s like a small stone in your shoe, now you don’t care, but maybe one week, or one month, you feel totally destroyed with a small stone…it’s growing.” While this strategy provides opportunity for river conservation movements in Chile to “create a forum for social change,” it is doubtful that such change’s impact upon hydro development would be consequential without political reform (Carruthers 2001, 1). Although the sitting president Michelle Bachelet has made more environmentally focused reform proposals between her two terms than any other, their implementation has been unimpressive.
Figure 5. I took this picture in January 2016 on Chile’s main highway, Route 5. The billboard reads: “Reform the Water Code, Expropriation of Our Waters, Corruption” and was the only major sign I saw referencing water conflict in Chile.
While Bachelet has defined several modifications to the Water Code and the constitution itself in terms of promoting both water as a “national good” and the ecological stability of Chile’s basins, these goals continue to be unrepresented. Ideally, “the purpose of this State public responsibility requires the recovery of the legal status of water as a national public good…belonging to all Chileans, and cannot be given as property to private hands, free of charge, in perpetuity, and without criteria that prioritize the needs of the population and the maintenance of environmental owes to ensure the integrity and functioning of watersheds” (Belmar, et al. 2010, 31). In 2007 the Bachelet administration did make what appeared to be concerted efforts to mitigate water conflicts in considering new management strategies. However, like other initiatives the “Integrated Watershed Strategy” and following Interministerial Water Committee lacked clearly defined alterations and capabilities to adapt to basin specific dynamics (Belmar, et al. 2010). Also during Bachelet’s first term, a specific reform called “Draft Law on Constitutional Reform to Article 19 No. 23 and 24” presented by the Ministry of Public Works in 2009, “took into account the parliamentary proposals and citizen demands that focused on the objective of allowing more equitable access and distribution of water; on giving priority to the multiple uses of it; on promoting the implementation of water reserves from rivers; and on preserving watersheds and the social, economic and environmental services that water and watersheds provide to communities and local and national development” (Belmar, et al. 2010, 27). As Piñera took office in 2010 however, the reform was frozen and has not been remobilized despite Bachelet’s return to office in 2014. Ultimately her water policy goals remain vague as do her allegiances to projects like the Puelo, making the transition to water legally managed as a “public good” currently improbable. This statement is generalized through the notion that “environmental policymaking has been driven primarily by external forces linked to economic globalization rather than by the kind of internal societal and political changes commonly identified as drivers of environmental policy” (Tecklin 2011, 880).