Voz Silvestre Blog Launch--Pascua Expedition Project

I have hardly had a free moment with my computer since I left my Northern California home. It has been all about working on my latest consultancy with International Rivers. The Bay Area was non-stop, and the trip to the Aysén Region is well on its way to becoming a reality. A crazy wild improvised reality, but a reality none-the-less.

This is definitely one of those situations where one wonders if they have bitten off more than they can chew. I know I feel like I am making a lot of this up as I go. Thank goodness for the help of friends and new colleagues. Otherwise I would feel like I was hiking straight into a hailstorm without knowing where I was going. At least this way I feel more like I know where I am going, though I am not yet sure I can tell when the hailstorm will hit. There is a big difference between those two feelings. Thanks to everybody helping make this trip happen.

What trip you might say? At the end of November I was approached by Aaron Sanger, now the Patagonia Campaign Coordinator at International Rivers, to lead a trip to the Pascua River drainage in the south of the Aysén Region of Chile. What started out as a consultancy to organize a low profile backpacking trip has turned into a major media production. It is increasingly obvious, though, that making a splash with our trip to remote Aysén is a key element to a rapidly emerging international strategy to prevent the industrial development of a remote stronghold of wilderness lore.

As one of the initial expressions of International Rivers’ new Patagonia Campaign, The Pascua Expedition Project is an effort to put an international light on the threats of mega hydroelectric development to Patagonia’s wild rivers. It is an urgent backcountry and environmental delegation to a practically unknown place that has been slated for industrial conversion. We aspire to backpack down the length of the main body of the Río Pascua, from its headwaters at the outlet of Lago O’Higgins, down to the road that is being punched into this remote area bordering the Southern Patagonia Ice Field. On this hike we should be able to get a first hand view of the landscapes in question and help answer the question of what exactly is at stake.

The Pascua itself is a short, steep, and high volume river. As seen is this map, the plan of HidroAysén is to build three dams on this river.

The damming of this river is definitely impressive to contemplate. We want to hike it and get to know it and document, as I have said, exactly what is at stake.

Getting this trip together is definitely turning into a big deal, We have had lots of help from folks in Patagonia, in Coyhaique and Villa O’Higgins, even considering the pressures of high season tourism on everyone’s time and resources. My goals are to have a safe trip, to be as low impact as such a campaign device might be, and to contribute to a growing chorus of people demanding that the HidroAysén Project be abandoned.

Take a look at some of the previous blogs I put up here, the videos and article that I posted are great background material on the HidroAysén project. This is a huge project, one that previously I was watching with concern from a distance, but that now I am awash in, as intensely and more rapidly than the campaign to stop the Alumysa project. Back to Patagonia, can you believe it? It really is like coming in off the bench. I am certainly not going to be a substitute for anyone, but the situation is serious enough that all the second stringers need to get on the field now too.

HidroAysén--a multiheaded monster unleashed on Patagonia

The preparations for my return to the Chilean Patagonia are well underway, and soon I will be in the San Francisco Bay Area pulling together more of the pieces of the puzzle for our upcoming trip down to Aysén. I will be sure to post a more detailed description of our proposed trip soon.

It seems that the effort to protect Patagonia's rivers is continuing to run head on into the monster of mega-industrialization. The following link leads to an important article, published just last week in a newspaper from British Columbia, which describes the scale of the potential impact of the HidroAysén project.

Interestingly enough, some of the same players who were pushing for the installment of the Alumysa aluminum smelter are behind the HidroAysén project. Notice in the article that Mr. Dennis Couture, who was spokesperson for Noranda/Brascan Corp while attempting to push Alumysa on Patagonia, is now spokesperson for the Brookfield (formerly Brascan--got to love the re branding strategies of exploitative industry!) economic group that wants to build the longest high tension power line in the world, fragmenting protected areas along the length of Chile's Patagonia. This on top of the five dams on two rivers that ENDESA and Colbún are proposing. A truly multi-headed monster come to consume the still free rivers of Patagonia. Read the article for an interesting and informative perspective into the project.

Canadian pension funds linked to controversial project in Patagonia

As well, para nosotros que hablan el castellano, hay otro video que es una buena resumen del monstruo de HidroAysén. Este video es de la campaña Patagonia Sin Represas.



Stay tuned to this page for a full description of the Pascua Expedition Project, a trip to one of the last unknown wild rivers of the Patagonian Andes, the Río Pascua, threatened by the HidroAysén proposal.

Background Video on HidroAysén Dam Proposals in Patagonia

I am slowly getting my feet under me for pulling this new vozsilvestre Blog together, and for getting ready to travel back down to South America. Everything is happening very fast now, but the learning curve is in my favor it seems.

What I would like to share here are some short YouTube videos, one from Glenn Switkes at International Rivers and the other a little celebrity NRDC video with Beto Cuevas of La Ley, the Chilean rock band. Hay una versión en español del video de Beto también.

Both of these videos describe the threats to Patagonian rivers and landscapes due to major hydroelectric development. Take a look at these and learn some basics about the HidroAysén project that I will be heading down to check out more closely. Wish us luck!! And go ahead and take action with NRDC.

Getting Back Into The Game

The phone calls and emails have brought me in off the bench and back into the game. Watch this page for accounts of my new activities and projects. It may take me a little while to get the features of this site figured out. In the meantime, Photos From Travels Past!