PUBLIC STATEMENT REGARDING THE ANNOUNCEMENTS ABOUT GRANTING NATIONAL PARKS

PUBLIC STATEMENT

REGARDING THE ANNOUNCEMENTS ABOUT GRANTING NATIONAL PARKS

1. Regarding the announcement of the Ministery of Public Works about the will to handle the granting the Chilean National Parks to private entities, the Kawésqar community presents their astonishment and disbelief about this announcement.

2. This news comes from a Chilean Government entity that is truly not concerned about Environment and Culture Protection --it claims itself the right of setting the availability of our National Parks in the future by dismissing the Chilean Government management of them--. This reminds us the most perturbing precedents of privatization ever set in Chile.

3. Let’s see the case of the National Parks in Magallanes. There, private entities have tried multiple approaches in order to get to manage them, this to change the way they are managed and turn them into spaces suitable for private business.

4. We oppose those intentions. The people from Magallanes have not been asked about those decisions, and have ancestral rights on those lands, inalienable and eternal rights on these lands. Thus, it calls out the attention that the spokesman of the Ministry of Public Works chooses a newspaper from Santiago to announce their unwise intentions.

5. We recommend Mr. Galilea that he should remember the predation of natural resources is mostly by private interests. The fish, woods, and waters of these lands have been invariably affected by the same people that Mr. Galilea pretends to benefit when he grant them our lands; a formula otherwise aged that is no longer needed in a world that seeks new and better forms of managing the legacy of our ancestors.

6. From this very moment, we announce that we will coordinate our opposition together along other ethnic groups from the Magallanes region and from the entire country. We will get together to stop this new attempt against the natural and cultural heritage that affects us directly. We will insist about this in the presence of all national and international entities, if the government continues their intent on not to acknowledge our rights over our ancient lands. The Government of Chile must finish these practices, because they disregard the international commitments, which only discredit, annoy, and complicate relations between the native people and the authorities of this Government.

PUERTO EDEN KAWESQAR COMUNITY

aswakiar@gmail.com

JUAN CARLOS TONKO CONFERENCE ON PARALLEL TO 13º EIGHTH SESSION OF THE PERMANENT FORUM ON INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS UNITED NATIONS ACTIVITIES IN NEW YORK

THE KAWÉSQAR PEOPLE

THE LAST CANOEISTS OF PATAGONIA (CHILE)

Background. We, the Kawésqar represent the last vestige of the ancient people of the Patagonian fjords and channels. Until today we have survived policies of genocide and ethnocide, the predation of our resources, and cultural, social and economic marginalization.

Today we are live in a single community, established in the village of Puerto Edén, on the shores of Wellington Island, in the South of Chile (49° 08' 20" S - 74° 27' 10" W). Our only means of communication with Chile´s urban centers is by sea.

Our village is located in the Bernardo O'Higgins Park, the largest in the country, which has a rich biological diversity, the source of our culture. Nearby is the Southern Patagonian ice field, the largest reserve of fresh water in the southern hemisphere, after the Antarctic. To the Southeast lies the Torres del Paine National Reserve, one of the main tourist attractions of South America´s Southern Cone.   

The Patagonian channels are cold and brackish waterways. They are the source of important marine resources - fish, molluscs, crustaceans and marine mammals, which have been used since time immemorial for the livelihood of our people-

The KAWÉSQAR Canoe people. Of the four indigenous peoples of Patagonia, only two have survived. The Kawésqar people, whose community is seated in Puerto Edén, and the Yagan people, settled in Puerto Williams. As a result of the implementation of a livestock economy within their territories, the land hunting peoples, the Aonikenk and Selk'nam were exterminated in a shameful process riddled with crime. 

Our canoeist cultures were able to deal more successfully with the irruption of Chilean society, given our greater geographic dispersion, high mobility, and because we represent marginal competition for Western interests. However, politics of sedentarisation developed by the Chilean authorities, as well as the introduction of doctrines and 8 ethical concepts foreign to our communities, lead to the progressive abandonment of our traditional practices. Today only one Kawésqar community survives, based in Puerto Edén, with 8 people who keep the culture of our people alive.

Our status as peoples linked to the marine environment is not included within the indigenous policies implemented by the Government of Chile. Chilean indigenous legislation has a strong terrestrial bias, lacking effective instruments for supporting maritime indigenous peoples. While significant resources are destined to land recovery, there are no parallel mechanisms that enable the effective occupation of the marine spaces and their resources. Furthermore, growing industrial aquaculture and tourism threaten with the appropriation of our spaces, which are only protected today because they are within a nature reserve.

Conditions and livelihoods. The Kawésqar community of Puerto Edén lives in conditions of extreme isolation. Year by year this increases our material poverty and the socio-economic and socio-cultural precariousness of our people. This contrasts with the fact that we live in an environment which is highly attractive in terms of natural resources, biodiversity and the possibilities for generating productive and culturally and environmental sustainable initiatives.

Our demands can be summed up as the following:

a)     Affirmation of rights: over the ancient, coastal and terrestrial territory and its resources; and over our traditional and cultural production, in accordance with the Chiles´ commitments with the international community.

b)     Effective access to our resources: recognition of the maritime and terrestrial particularity of our culture and of the use of our resources.

c)     Access to technologies: the right to benefit from technological advances and adapt them to our ancestral practices, ensuring access to these advances.

d)     Training of people: implementing programmes consistent with our culture for the training and development of our community.

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Translated from Spanish by Sally Hinds.