Abstract
The Chilean water model has been described as a textbook example of a free-market water system. This article contributes to the critiques of this model by showing the effect of its implementation in the Atacameño community of Chiu-Chiu, located in the Atacama Desert in the south-central Andes. In this community, the privatization of water rights ignored local water management practices that had produced a high-altitude wetland (known as a vega). This led to the inhabitants’ dispossession of crucial water rights and to wetland degradation. This process belies statements that the Chilean model relies on an unregulated market and instead highlights the state’s role in marginalizing local irrigation practices by reducing the water consumption of the indigenous population while keeping the copper mining industry (the main source of Chilean income) and related growing urban populations supplied with water.
Highlights
Verzijl and Quispe (2013) describe high-altitude wetlands in the Andes that are viewed by many as natural but are irrigated systems that “nobody sees.”. They criticize the means by which the invisibility of these wetlands allows them to be perceived as wastelands and obstacles to progress. Following their invitation to conduct research on this phenomenon, this article analyzes the effects of the neoliberal Chilean water model on one such irrigated system in the Atacama Desert
For the mountain waterscapes of the Atacama, this is a critical issue. These waterscapes have distinctive characteristics: the Atacama is the driest place on earth, water bodies have high mineral content, the mining industry and urban populations place heavy demands on the water supply, and indigenous communities manage water for agriculture and pastoralism
Like many high-altitude wetlands in the Andes, the wetland of Las Vegas de Chiu-Chiu is a cultural artifact, produced through irrigation
Summary
Verzijl and Quispe (2013) describe high-altitude wetlands in the Andes that are viewed by many as natural but are irrigated systems that “nobody sees.” They criticize the means by which the invisibility of these wetlands allows them to be perceived as wastelands and obstacles to progress. The Chilean military regime imposed a new water code in 1981, which is widely considered to be a radical example of the commodification of water (Bauer 1998; Budds 2004) Under this model, despite the fact that water remains public property, the state can grant private use rights. These waterscapes have distinctive characteristics: the Atacama is the driest place on earth, water bodies have high mineral content, the mining industry and urban populations place heavy demands on the water supply, and indigenous communities manage water for agriculture and pastoralism These elements are ignored by the universal neoliberal formula of private water rights and free markets. This article complements the literature that questions the effects of overlooking local management practices for mountain waterscapes (Lansing 1991), especially in high-altitude Andean wetlands (Verzijl and Quispe 2013)
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