Chile

The Mapuche people of southern Chile are no strangers to fighting for their land. Issues of land expropriation go beyond seizure by government and corporations. In the southern region of Chile, the cause is conservation. The Mapuche people are indigenous to the area, they claim the forest lands of Chile as their property due to ancestral ties. The Mapuche are Chile's largest indigenous group, making up nine percent of said population, and have been fighting for their land since the arrival of the Spanish in the 1500s (Holmes 2013). The Mapuche mainly inhabit the southern region of Chile, an area which was once rich in timber, but has been highly deforested. Author Laura E. Meza (2009) writes that “lumber companies are the largest landholders throughout most of southern Chile” and the Forestry industry is the second largest exporter in the country. Additionally, the acreage has been acquired in a form of land expropriation: taking advantage of government subsidies and poor land owners (Holmes 2014). Those born Mapuche have a 56 percent chance of being poor (Meza 2009). During former President Augusto Pinochet’s term, 1974-1990, a focus on the timber industry resulted in an uptake in Mapuche peoples land being taken. Specifically, Decree Law 701 resulted in forestry industry expansion, which favored timber companies over the Mapuche people (Meza 2009). This issue of extreme logging has given way to a new issue surrounding Mapuche peoples land; “conservation grabs”.

Conservation grabs are a recent phenomenon of land expropriation, sometimes called land grabbing. According to author George Holmes (2014) conservation grabs are similar to land grabs, but with intentions of preserving the ecological aspects of an area, such as biodiversity. Despite sounding well intentioned, Holmes notes that conservation land grabs can be seen as a form of resource grabbing, framed “with biodiversity mentioned as a co-benefit alongside carbon capture and economic growth”. Most land purchases with conservation in mind happen as private protected areas (PPAs). There are roughly 500 PPAs in Chile, owning around 2% of the total land area (Meza 2009). Most are owned by philanthropists and NGOs such as the World Wild Fund (WWF) and Patagonia Land Trust (PLT) among others (Meza 2009). Philanthropist Douglas Tompkins is known for purchasing land in southern Chile in the 1990s, which became the Pumalin Park. This conservation grab is highly contested because such an action had not been done in Chile before, and Tompkins was accused of taking advantage of farmers in the area who owned land.

This case of land expropriation in Chile is central to issues of landscapes, politics and identity. The Mapuche people feel they have a right to their ancestral lands, which have continuously been taken from them by the government, logging companies, and, most recently, conservation groups and activists. While issues of protecting and conserving the land are also the intentions of Mapuche, the increased competition has resulted in tension. The identities of indigenous groups are often tied to the land of their ancestors, as with the Mapuche people. The question remains to be if it is possible to achieve a balance in conservation and honoring the rights of indigenous peoples.