"Can you continue eating avocados which results from the violation of the human right to water?"
Dried-up rivers, children deprived of water… Activist Rodrigo Mundaca tells us about the hidden face of Chile’s avocado production.
Dried-up rivers, children deprived of water… Activist Rodrigo Mundaca tells us about the hidden face of Chile’s avocado production.
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00:00Is it possible that you continue to consume avocados
00:03that are the result of the violation of the human right to water?
00:06Is it possible that you continue to consume avocados
00:08when there are children who do not know the rivers?
00:10When there are children who, deprived of water, have to leave their communities?
00:13When there are people who, in our territory,
00:16have had to suffer forced environmental migration
00:19precisely because of the deprivation of water?
00:21We don't think so.
00:23And therefore, we also think that it is very important
00:25that you worry about the value chain,
00:27about who are the producers who come with their avocados to their markets.
00:30And if that producer who comes with the avocado to his market
00:33is a producer who has violated the human right to water,
00:36who steals water in our territory,
00:38don't buy it.
00:57In Chile today, there is a private model of water
01:20that is consacrated in the Constitution.
01:22In Chile, stealing water is an administrative fault
01:25that is charged with a fine.
01:27Today, the State of Chile is not able to guarantee
01:30the human right to water,
01:32even though in Chile water is a private property.
01:34That is to say, water in Chile today is bought,
01:37sold or rented.
01:39Today, in our territory, in the province of Petorca,
01:41inside the Valparaíso region, as I have already pointed out,
01:43there is no water in the rivers.
01:45There is no surface drainage of water in the rivers
01:47because all the surface water today
01:49is stored in large avocado plantations.
01:52These avocado plantations today,
01:54as there is no surface water in the rivers,
01:56deepen the subsurface and extract water
01:59at 200 or 300 meters deep.
02:02Therefore, as there is no water in the rivers,
02:05the entire hydrological cycle is fractured.
02:08It doesn't rain in our territories.
02:10And obviously it doesn't rain because
02:12as there is no surface water drainage in the rivers,
02:15the entire hydrological cycle is fractured.
02:18Where do we drink water from?
02:20We drink water mainly from algae trucks.
02:22I understand that in Europe they are called
02:24cistern trucks.
02:26In the most acute situations,
02:28in terms of water deprivation,
02:30even, for the poor and simple,
02:32water deprivation has to meet
02:34its physiological needs in plastic bags.
02:37To live water deprived in a territory like ours,
02:40in the province of Petorca,
02:42but to live water deprived throughout the country,
02:45from Darica to Inacota to Magallanes,
02:47in the entire Chilean territory today,
02:49means that the life of our communities
02:51is completely mortgaged.
02:54And particularly the lives of the youngest,
02:56of the children.
03:15For us, the Climate Change Summit
03:17is a fair of vanities.
03:19It promises what it does not fulfill in its country.
03:22Everyone is committed to reducing
03:24the emission of greenhouse gases
03:26and the extractive industry in our territories
03:28and it remains unalterable.
03:30And European transnationals today
03:32take over the environment,
03:34degrade the environment in our territory.
03:36Transnationals like Suez, of French origin,
03:38take over the water in the country.
03:40Transnationals like Aguas de Barcelona
03:42are in control of the main sanitary water of the country.
03:45Andean water in the metropolitan region, in Santiago.
03:48Today there is a mandate,
03:50and that mandate is to build a new paradigm of development
03:52that is economically viable, without a doubt,
03:54but also socially fair
03:56and ecologically healthier.
03:58And officials like Piñera are directly responsible
04:00for the degradation of the environment
04:02and for compromising the lives of our communities
04:04and our territories, but also European transnationals
04:06who earn money in our territories,
04:08in Latin America,
04:10at the expense of the sacrifice of our communities.
04:12Water depends on the lives of people,
04:14but also on the lives of plants,
04:16the functioning of the ecosystem,
04:18the development of local economies.
04:20Water is a human right,
04:22and cannot continue to be privatized
04:24and commodified in such a remote country
04:26as Chile.