Municipality prepares deal for Bosque El Panul behind residents' backs
A betrayal of the community: there is no other way to describe the Municipal Zoning Plan (PRC) amendment promoted by Mayor Carter, approved by the Municipal Council in mid-October 2013.
A betrayal of the community: there is no other way to describe the Municipal Zoning Plan (PRC) amendment promoted by Mayor Carter, approved by the Municipal Council in mid-October 2013.
Some characteristics of Amendment No. 9:
1) It proposes the subdivision of the forest into one-hectare plots. Within each plot, the real estate company can build 140 square meters — but it can also choose to concentrate all construction on a single lot, meaning the heart of the native forest could perfectly well be razed.
2) This subdivision is established from the outset, without waiting for the results of the geographic studies that residents have been demanding for years — which makes no sense, since the study should be what determines the zoning for the area. This was confirmed by the Regional Minister of Housing himself, Juan Andrés Muñoz.
3) It demolishes the demands residents have been pursuing for eight years, because it does not prohibit construction in the precordillera and therefore the native forest of the district cannot be converted into a large, non-profit community park.
4) It allows the real estate company to go to court, since by law the construction permit freeze cannot last more than one year — a period the municipality has already used without having the final results. So the real estate company will save its business and the municipality will wash its hands of it, saying this was a court order.
We view with outrage all these delays on such transcendental matters, without consulting the community and hiding the real information — especially at a time when Panul is used only as an electoral campaign slogan.
We won't be fooled. Panul's future is being negotiated at this very moment, between authorities and companies. What they are after is authorization to destroy a large part of the native forest — in exchange they offer a "park" above the 900-meter contour — like so many semi-private parks that abound in this country. Mayor Carter will present this as a great achievement of his administration, but it is the same project with which the real estate company has been trying to buy off the organized community since 2007.
Our project is for Panul to be a community park — that is, controlled and managed by the residents themselves — to serve as a space of brotherhood and the generation of knowledge and popular power. A territory for learning, play, political and spiritual development; a place that gives us dignity when we seek to live well.
We insist on our call for a dialogue and working roundtable with all social actors — because there is no institutional way out, and the outraged defenders of Panul will not allow a single machine to enter our forest.
We demand expropriation now. This conflict will only be resolved when management of the Andean native forests is handed over to the community. Our democracy is sick with centralism and concentration of power; we humbly do our part by seeking control of our own territory, our own lives.
NOT ONE LESS NATIVE FOREST. NO MORE PROFIT FROM OUR LIVES.
FOREST OR DEATH!
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