Enviromental conflict in mining dumps of General Carrera Lake

Hindsights from Aysen settlers

Abstract

This article features on an investigation carried out in the second half of 2019 in the communities of Puerto Sánchez, Puerto Guadal and Puerto Ibáñez, all of them belong to the General Carrera Lake basin, also known as Chelenko, in Región de Aysén, southern zone of Chile. In this framework, is addressed an environmental problem associated to the polluting legacy of mine tailings that operated in this territory, in the recent past. The described situation is related to the historical practices of extractivism, as well as, with the behavior of the polluting agent (Slow Violence). Struggling with it the answer from the public apparatus due to the lack of clarity about how this agent acts, and the ignorance about the potential risks, that could generate in the population and the environment, in the framework of what has come to be called toxic disinformation. Furthermore, some of the citizen reactions, some socio-environmental effects and communicational management of some mining activities, present and past, in these localities of the adjacent territory to General Carrera Lake are analyzed.