Friday, 6 Feb 2004
CHACABUCO, Chile
Good afternoon! When I wrote yesterday, I was on my way to Lago Caro to meet with the Kids for Forests activists, so now you're probably waiting with bated breath to learn how my day went. I will keep you in suspense no longer ...
We left Chacabuco, where the Arctic Sunrise is presently anchored, with a cadre of crew members, campaigners, and assorted other tagalongs, bright and early yesterday morning. It takes three hours by bus to get from Chacabuco to Lago Caro, so I dutifully carried my laptop along, intending to get some work done on the ship tour website.
Scenery that'll knock your socks off.
Photo: Daniel Beltra, Greenpeace 2004
I hadn't counted on the scenery, however (silly me -- you've seen some of the photos!), and could barely tear my gaze from the window. On the right was a deep, verdant valley with a turquoise river running through it, and on the left, lush forests. Fuchsia bushes lined the road (I thought they only grew in pots!), as did foxglove (or something that looks very similar) and the most beautiful mosses in every shade of green.
After three hours of intense visual stimulation, we arrived at the area where the kids were camping. It was a flat, grassy plateau in the valley, with a small community center shared by the eight families who live in the area. A deep, narrow river separated the road from the camp -- we were ferried across by one of the locals and greeted by about 60 people on the other side. Some were members of local families; others had come from various places in the Aysen region to participate.
"Participate in what?" you ask, hoping, perhaps, for an exciting story about confrontation and police chases. But we didn't want to do an "action" in the traditional Greenpeace style, we just wanted to show that there is strong local opposition to the Alumysa project. So we decided to use bodies to create a human message down in the valley, which will be under water if mining company Noranda moves forward with Alumysa. (I couldn't tell you about our plans yesterday, of course -- Greenpeacers are expert secret-keepers. We like surprises.)
The activity was great fun and gave us the chance to interact both with the youth activists and the local residents. (I was on the "Y" team, which prompted us to burst into the widely international and long-outdated song by the Village People.) It was also harder than it looks. When nearly 100 people are lying on the ground in various shapes, it's difficult to gauge how it will look from a camera -- and in this case, the camera was in Tweety, the helicopter that resides on the Sunrise.
So we patiently braved the searing Patagonian sun and laid on rocks and dirt and small crawling things while the helicopter flew overhead. "Done?" we'd ask, spitting sweat and dirt out of our mouths. "One more!" said the voice on the radio. Finally the helicopter crew came back, at which point we discovered that the pictures were unusable: It was too difficult to make out our shapes on the light brown earth. Okay, on to Plan B (Greenpeacers are also extremely flexible). But first we ate a delicious vegetarian meal of red peppers and cucumbers and pasta, sharing our mealtime with nearly 10 parrots that were perched in a nearby tree.
A (human) banner day.
Photo: Daniel Beltra, Greenpeace 2004
When we had properly digested our food and chatted with our friends, we did some scouting and found a nice grassy area (green is a good background color) in the valley where the human banner would stand out better. After some manipulations, using fewer people to create more compact letters, we got it right, and the photographer got his shots. Whew! It's tough to lie around on Patagonian earth while gazing out at rivers and mountains and ... (are you plugging your virtual ears, telling me to shut up now?).
We finally left Lago Caro around 6 p.m., bidding farewell to our new friends, all of us feeling that we'd just experienced our best day yet. I'm sure there will be more, but as this is my last entry, you'll have to visit the ship tour website to learn about them.
Now we prepare for open boat days, when we open the ship to visits from the public. When the Arctic Sunrise was in little Punta Arenas in the southernmost part of Chile, a five-hour open boat day attracted more than 3,000 people! We're not expecting such a large turnout here, but one never knows. Next week we move north to Puerto Montt, where we will turn our attention to the Valdivian rainforest, the world's second-largest coastal temperate rainforest.
Next week also marks the beginning of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where world leaders will meet about the fate of the world's remaining forests and marine ecosystems. In 2002, world governments committed themselves to "move from dialogue to action" and to "strengthen efforts to halt biodiversity loss." This year's meeting will determine whether it's an honest commitment or, well, hot air. Having spent some time now in Patagonia's ancient forests, and seeing the implications of failing to protect them from industry and other private interests, it is difficult to overstate how much we stand to lose.
Thanks for reading. I hope you'll continue to follow us on our journey.
Por los bosques,
Meghan
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