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The sale of the island of Guafo, for 20 million dollars in the jet-set market, aroused international interest this Friday.
As reported by BioBioChile in the middle of last year, the territory located near Chiloé, in the Los Lagos region, was declared for sale by South World Business partners, businessmen Rodrigo Danús and Paul Fontaine, after they gave up mining coal for thermoelectric projects in that area.
Now the British newspaper The Guardian picked up the story highlighting the Mapuche and “sacred” origin of the island, adding that the fact “caused outrage among activists and reignited a debate in Chile about private property versus national heritage.”
Meanwhile, the Argentine newspaper Clarín titled “Scandal: Guafo, the paradise island in Chile that the Mapuches adore and the rich seek to buy for US $ 20 million.”
The English media indicates that “environmentalists and local indigenous peoples are exasperated that the island’s 217-square-kilometer extension and its waters, with the exception of a lighthouse manned by the Chilean Navy, are being offered to the highest bidder.”
Being a site with a high diversity of flora and fauna, which includes blue and humpback whales, orcas and dolphins, among others, the environmental organization WWF Chile started a campaign in 2017 to have the island’s waters declared a protected marine area. But the indigenous Mapuche Huilliche communities of Chiloé seek to oversee the Guafo coast.
“We are asking the government to consider returning (the island),” Cristian Chiguay, lonko of eleven Lafkenche communities in Quillón, told The Guardian, who are part of a plan to conserve the island’s ancestral fishing grounds where they collect sea urchins and algae. . “We see (the island) as a source of life and spiritual power. For us it is not a business, it has no commercial value ”, he added.
The aforementioned medium adds that Guafo is one of the six Chilean islands currently for sale on the Private Islands Inc. site “but its listing was withdrawn from the Sotheby’s Realty portal this week, apparently due to media interest.”
The Ministry of the Environment responded that the island and its waters were a “hotspot for the conservation of biodiversity” but as “private property, current legislation does not allow (…) to be declared a national park, natural monument or national reserve.”
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