Carter's public consultation and the protection that never came
More than six years after that vote (the most massive public consultation in the history of the municipality), Panul remains completely unprotected, and it has been the community that, in recent times, has created a de facto community park to protect the place — both from the real estate threat and from the damage caused by the large number of visitors and the carelessness of some people.
It was January 2012, and the mayor of La Florida, Rodolfo Carter, announced he would hold a public consultation to find out whether the La Florida community agreed with protecting Bosque Panul and the precordillera of the municipality. Suspicious, to say the least, that this came two weeks after the community's victory over the real estate project — a project that sought to install 1,304 homes and apartments in the middle of the native forest. After four years of intense struggle, the community achieved a historic victory by defeating the project in the Environmental Assessment Service.
It was then that the mayor — who hadn't even provided municipal facilities for the public presentation of the project, nor submitted observations within the deadline — decided to hold a public consultation.
Asked: "Do you agree that the Municipality of La Florida should modify the Municipal Zoning Plan to protect Bosque Panul and the precordillera of the municipality?" — 22,000 residents went to the polls, and the result was categorical: 98.5% approved changing the Plan to protect the forest and the precordillera. link 1 - link 2
More than six years after that vote (the most massive public consultation in the history of the municipality), Panul remains completely unprotected, and it has been the community that, in recent times, has created a de facto community park to protect the place — both from the real estate threat and from the damage caused by the large number of visitors and the carelessness of some people.
No matter how much the mayor continues to say that Panul is protected, one only needs to visit the place to realize this is not the case. And not only this: the Ministry of the Environment — under both the Bachelet and Piñera governments — has said the same thing on several occasions, in relation to the lawsuit the Red Precordillera maintains against the owners of the forest for the enormous environmental damage they have caused, by operating a subsidiary of OXIQUIM for drying algae there for decades. The ministry has been unwilling to take measures against the owners to have them remove the tonnes of sea sand spread throughout the forest — precisely because, according to them, Panul is not protected.
Even with this background, Rodolfo Carter continues to publicly claim that "he protected Panul," as he did at a seminar of the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning of the Universidad de Chile a few days ago.
The community understands protection to mean the creation of a public park, under community management, as happens today in the parks of Rapa Nui. The zoning plan change made by Carter, far from protecting it, maintained the urban character of Panul — even though the municipality itself conducted a study that recommended creating at least a natural value area on the site, given its importance and great biodiversity. In other words, the mayor has not fulfilled the mandate of the residents who went to vote, much less the recommendations of his own technical studies. However, there is still time to protect Panul.
At the last meeting the mayor granted us, that same year 2012, he was emphatic in stating that "he would not spend a single peso on Panul." At least he has kept that promise.
Red por la Defensa de la Precordillera.
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The information archived in Archivo Panul was collected using automated tools, so there may be inconsistencies between what is presented here and the original link. You can visit the original link at the top of this article.