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After Foreign Minister Andrés Allamand announced that the Government will not sign the Escazú pact, arguing that “it is not convenient for Chile”, this morning more than 20 leaders and environmental activists of the country sent a letter to President Sebastián Piñera requesting that he desist from this determination and sign the treaty before September 26, the date on which the term to join expires.
In the letter entitled “A commitment to human rights and the environment: Chile must sign the Escazú Agreement”, the representatives of the various environmental organizations criticized Minister Allamand’s statements and pointed out that they are “contradictory and without support for a government that He says to treat environmental issues as a priority, but that at the time of “signing” pacts or “leading” agreements such as COP 25 they have failed “.
As a precedent, they mention in the letter that Chile is one of the 20 countries with the highest number of socio-environmental conflicts in the world and they specify among some of the factors associated with “highly polluting and invasive activities such as mining projects”, “the weak environmental institutionality” and the risk of being environmental activists or ecologists.
Among the reasons given in the letter for the Executive to support the signature, they point out that “it is an advance in territorial demands; in access to information; the public participation of communities to protect the ecosystems they inhabit; in ecological democracy and in the defense of the rights of social leaders ”.
In this regard, Nataly Campusano, president of the Fundación Territorios Colectivos, stated that “we challenge the Government of President Sebastián Piñera to sign the Escazú Agreement and stop thinking about the interests of big business, move for the environment, for the territorial democracy and for the protection of those who day by day resist the extractivism that exists in Chile ”.
The leader of the Escazú Now Chile campaign, Sebastián Benfeld, criticized the words of Minister Allamand: “This undoubtedly constitutes a lack of respect for the communities, for the territories that today do not have enough tools to assert and respect your rights, “he said.
“We hope that this September 22, when the minister has to give the official response of the State of Chile for the signing of Escazú, he will make a responsible decision and thinking about the future, and announce the signing of the State of Chile in Escazú,” he added .
The ecofeminist activist for Petorca, Bárbara Astudillo, indicated to close that “in Chile there is no ecological democracy, there is no binding participation, we gargle with a social democracy when the territory cannot decide and influence public policies, especially knowing that when defending the environment there is no protection, so it is irresponsible on the part of the authorities not to place the firm in Escazú. “
Letter to the President By Agreement of Escazú by El Mostrador on Scribd
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