When I first saw the Atacama desert, in the
late 1970s, its vast aridity overwhelmed me, and inspired me to return to Chile to
undertake my M.A. thesis on llama and alpaca herding in the Andean highlands of
Parque Nacional Lauca, east of the city of Arica. To do so, I had a fellowship
from the Inter-American
Foundation, but I also needed an in-country sponsor to be able to carry out
the research. One of my faculty advisors at Berkeley put me in touch with Horacio
Larraín Barros, then a geography professor at Santiago’s Universidad
Católica, who eased my way through official obstacles at a time when Chile was
an international pariah.
In the ensuing years, I have kept sporadically in touch with
Horacio, and have visited him in Antofagasta and in his retirement home at the
village of Matilla,
in the Andean foothills east of Iquique.
While retired, he is not inactive, and he still has an intense devotion to the
Atacama which, in its extreme aridity, is one of the world’s finest
archaeological reserves – nowhere else on Earth are sites and artifacts so
well-preserved.
Recently, though, he’s become concerned about environmental
threats to the Atacama, particularly through the Dakar Rally, which he often
mentions in his Eco-Antropología
blog. I’ve voiced my own misgivings
about Dakar, which has operated in Argentina, Chile and Peru since 2009, when terrorist threats made them abandon Africa.
Long before that, I recall seeing dirt-bike tracks vandalizing the massive
geoglyph known as the “Giant
of the Atacama” (pictured above) and other archaeological sites, and Horacio thinks Dakar
has brought this to a critical stage. For that reason, I asked him permission
to translate and publish a recent open letter he wrote to colleagues, which
appears below.
As an aside, I will toss in the fact that Horacio is a
distant, probably very distant, relative of Pablo Larraín, director of the
Oscar-nominated film No that I discussed in earlier posts.
Horació Larraín Barros on the Dangers of Dakar
Colleagues and friends, it’s time to get involved. This
Dakar Rally is going to continue growing, in the number of vehicles, drivers
and, what’s worse, the number of curiosity seekers either as spectators or
copycats with their own 4WD vehicles who leave an infinity of marks everywhere
on the land. We cannot simply act like ostriches, hiding our heads or saying,
“I already spoke about that.” We need to create a broad alliance of civic
response to express the feelings of the entire scientific and educational
community of the country. We have so far acted timidly and separately. I think
it’s time to undertake collective action: obtain thousands of signatures of
scientists, journalists, lawyers, photographers, visual artists, teachers, and
others. I’m not sure how to organized this network, but it’s imperative to do
so. The Internet is the medium of course, but how to make them listen to our
voices? Does anybody have an answer?
I believe the time has come for everyone who appreciates or
deals directly with environmental conservation (geographers, biologists,
agronomists, architects, anthropologists, archaeologists, geologists,
foresters) need to raise their voices in consensus against this event as it is
developing in today’s Chile.
Pilar
Cereceda has sent me documents proving how the Centro del Desierto de Atacama
(CDA, Atacama Desert Center) has credibly raised its voice since
2009 and 2010. The painful thing is that such documents, sent to the
responsible authorities, have been ignored. And this attitude illustrates how
there are semi-official powers (economic and political) behind all of this, and
that our voices as scientists, teachers and opinion-makers are not being
heard. My position is that we need to
take more decisive action in common.
If anyone has any
clearer ideas of how to articulate, through the network, a serious and
well-grounded response, we would appreciate it. What’s clear to me is that none of
the objections of the Consejo de Monumentos Nacionales (National Monuments
Council), the CDA and other institutions have been taken seriously. Apparently,
the responsible authorities have not even replied. And with respect to any
assessment of the real damages caused and means of mitigating them, we have not
heard a word, so far as I know.
What country are we
in? Will we permit others the luxury of destroying our valuable ecosystems and
cultural heritage with impunity?
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