Volcán Corcovado | Erich Roepke
A year not to forget
Carolina Morgado, Executive Director of Rewilding Chile Foundation.
Published in diario El Llanquihue - www.ellanquihue.cl
Our social networks were flooded with summaries of what our year was like with photographs and lists with the most listened songs and, as every end of the cycle, it led us to analyze what was achieved in this period and what we expect for the next one.
This year we left the pandemic behind us. Although it remains a relevant health issue, our day-to-day life has been returning to normal. We look back on the quarantines, the use of masks, and the bans on meetings and travel. However, the recovery of our freedom and return to normality cannot make us forget its causes: our relationship with nature. The pandemic was clear evidence that we are part of the same life cycle and that imbalances affect us all, no matter where we live.
The pandemic was clear evidence that we are part of the same life cycle and that imbalances affect us all, no matter where we live.
This is why, as a new year begins, it is imperative to promote and reinforce a commitment to protect and respect our natural and cultural heritage, including our national parks and all the communities of life they harbor. To establish ecological restoration or rewilding as a State policy, the protection of our biodiversity, both on land and in the sea, to increase effective conservation areas, to prohibit extractive activities in protected areas, reinforcing our commitment to the protection of 30% of the planet by 2030. For this, it is necessary to strengthen the institutional framework, governance, and management of nature conservation, with a view that considers the major environmental crises as a national priority.
Although our country is making progress in its environmental commitments, such as the closure of the Ventanas Smelter, the signing of the Escazú Agreement, the enactment of the Climate Change Law, and the announcement of the Turquoise Foreign Policy, situations such as the park rangers’ strike and the reduction of the 2023 budget for the Protected Areas System, highlight the problems associated with the lack of investment that our country allocates to conservation.
We hope that the arrival of a new year will allow us to continue advancing towards a State policy that protects nature as its central axis and highlights nature’s role in the face of the crises we are facing.