http://www.santiagotimes.cl/ [Chile]
Part III of a three-part series on Chile’s water crisis: Melting glaciers in the Andes have dire implications and may prove a robust obstacle to future economic growth.
t the 1992 world fair in Seville, Spain, Chile’s pavilion featured a large iceberg. Some 100 tons of ice — the equivalent of 15 full-grown African elephants — were extracted from the Southern Patagonian Ice Cap and shipped across the Atlantic where they were conserved for six months during the European summer.
To the newly democratic government, the spectacle was meant to symbolize Chile’s emergence as Latin America’s success story, ready to take its place on the world stage. It was also a telling symbol of what drove Chile’s surging economy: a frenzy of digging, cutting and exporting from copper mines in the North to logging in the South.
More than two decades later, the symbol of Chile’s growth is more relevant than ever. With dwindling reserves and growing water shortages, the country’s copper mines — its economic backbone — are being squeezed by two opposing forces: financial pressure to expand and concern over environmental impacts. Now the model that was once hailed as the emblem of Chile’s success is beginning to look as unstable as a massive chunk of ice plunked down under the Mediterranean heat.