ABSTRACT
Surrounded by snow-capped volcanoes and mountains crowned with the marvellous Araucaria (or monkey-puzzle tree), and fed by thousands of tributaries large and small, the mainstream of the Biobío is a dazzling turquoise ribbon that courses 380 kilometres from the Cordillera to the Pacific Ocean. Anyone who has visited the Upper Biobío river will concede that the beauty of this valley defies ordinary description. It is this watershed, which constitutes one of Chile’s most important bioregions, that is today being torn to pieces for the production of hydro-electric power. Through our efforts to prevent the destruction of this national and global treasure, we have had both to articulate the values that are being lost and to understand the logic behind this kind of destruction: the corporate dogma and vision of development which presuppose that ecological devastation and unending cultural fragmentation are inevitable costs of progress.
