Declaration of Lake Buenos Aires - Lake General Carrera

Declaration of Lake Buenos Aires - Lake General Carrera

First Binational Encounter: Patagonia Pure, Save the Fresh Water

In Los Antiguos, in Patagonia, on June 10, 2007, the following organizations and citizens met in the "First Binational Encounter of Patagonia Pure - Safe the Fresh Water" and agreed to the following:

1. To recognize the rich biological, cultural and social diversity of this large territory known as Patagonia, in Chile and Argentina, and to point out its exceptional environmental characteristics, in many places pristine, which makes it different from any other place on the planet.

2. To sponsor the work of Binational River Basins Committees in Patagonia with the goal of protecting common territories against the advance of transnational corporations who have begun a new wave of plunder of natural resources with severe impacts in the natural, social and cultural environment.

3. To formally request to the States of Argentina and Chile to modify mining legislation which enables and permits the uncontrolled advancing depredation of our mineral resources.

4. To begin a systematic work with educators in both countries in order to understand and express better that which is in risk with the advancement of extractive and energy megaprojects in Patagonia.

5. To establish future means of direct action which will give more visibility to this campaign for the defense of Patagonia.

6. To urge the governments of both Argentina and Chile to strictly comply with the Environmental Treaty with the Shared Water Resources Protocol signed by both nations in 1991, which precisely outlines how to act in the face of situations like those previously mentioned, considering that the shared watersheds of both countries are in risk, river basins that sustain the economic and social life of the communities that depend upon them.

7. To generate from here on, mechanisms in both countries dedicated to struggle for a unified Patagonia, in part through the generation of networks that permit the work in common towards this goal.

8. To strengthen the contacts with other networks and organizations that are carrying out actions of struggle against transnational megaprojects, and to replicate in other areas of Chilean and Argentine Patagonia the work we have carried out in Los Antiguos, as a means of generating assemblies of information and discussion over the threat that looms over our common territory.