Grupos de Investigación por incendios en Chubut (Research Groups on Fires in Chubut)
Photos: Matías Garay (Greenpeace)
(Castellano) (Euskara)
From the research program: “Socio-environmental conflicts in contexts of local configurations of hatred, resistance, and demands from Puelmapu” (CyT, National University of Patagonia San Juan Bosco), we would like to express that:
The forest fires in the province of Chubut cannot be explained by fire alone. Of course, without fire there is no fire, that is obvious.
But we know that disasters are not natural, but are deeply intertwined with social, political, and economic factors. That is why we insist on affirming that disasters are socio-environmental.
On the one hand, the prevailing development model is responsible for the climate changes we have been witnessing for years. The magnitude, frequency, and intensity of heat waves, droughts, and extreme winds are increasing year after year. This creates ideal conditions for fires in the Andean Patagonian forest. However, it would be naive to ignore that the national government, which denies climate change, insists on dismantling the regulatory frameworks that protect the environment, is responsible for defunding public universities, and delegitimizes the entire scientific community that addresses the issue.
On the other hand, we know that the fires are intentional, which means that there are sectors that benefit from the chaos and have a vested interest in seeing everything burn to ashes. Speculation and the visible hand of the market are behind the spark, furthering the foreignization of Patagonia, its river sources, basins, and hydrogeological reserves. Meanwhile, the provincial government is obsessed with blaming (once again) the peoples who have ancestrally inhabited the region without any evidence, and is spreading propaganda offering rewards and promising a heavy hand, as if that meant a public policy aimed at prevention and response to forest fires. At the same time, when there was an opportunity to give public answers to the press regarding funds that had been under-executed, there was only evasion of the question and arrogance.
The underlying cause of the fires has to do with the biased view of nature held by the governments in power. They do not see a forest, they see an obstacle to their progress. They do not see the sustenance of life in the snow-capped mountains, they see commodities. They do not see a people fighting for their rights or an organized and resilient community, they see noisy people sitting on a gold mine.
It is extractivism, misinformation, real estate speculation, monoculture of exotic species, greed for strategic minerals, and the plundering of people’s water that explain the complexity surrounding socio-environmental disasters. It is not only fire that is responsible for the disaster, but also the presence (or absence) of political decisions regarding the risk of forest fires and the current development model, which considers the destruction of territories in Patagonia to be the rule, not the exception.
Stop defunding the Fire Management Law and respect the principle of non-regression, stop denying anthropogenic climate change and respect access to information, stop persecuting defenders of the territories and attempts to empty Patagonia.
We embrace those who organize to care for life, those who maintain support networks in the midst of the fires, the self-organized community, precarious state workers, and the firefighters who defend the forest in the face of so much political fire.
El Reloj en Cuenta Regresiva program on the encroachment of the indigenous community of Misión Chaco and on the fires in Patagonia
How can you collaborate with the brigades and communities?
Information obtained from LatFem’s Instagram account at https://www.instagram.com/p/DTVRyJrjsg-/?img_index=1
✔️ EL HOYO VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTERS
Alias: bomberoselhoyo
CUIT: 30-67034426-2
Instagram: @bomberoseh
✔️ MALLIN AHOGADO FOREST BRIGADE
Alias: brigada.mallin.mp
Holder: Civil Association Volunteer Emergency Prevention and Response Team
Instagram: @brigadaforestalmallin
✔️ BRIDADA ANDINA
Alias: patagonia.utt.mp
Owner: Cooperativa de Trabajo Unión (Workers’ Cooperative Union)
Reason: Donation to the Andean Brigade
Instagram: @brigada.andina
✔️ BRIGADA DEL PARAJE (THE PARAJE BRIGADE)
Alias: mariaspezzini
Owner: María Natalia Spezzini Figueredo
Reason: Donation
Instagram: @brigadadelparaje
✔️ BRIGADA LOMA DEL MEDIO
Alias: brigada.lomadelmedio
Account holder: Alí Solange Quinteros Angulo
Instagram: @brigada.lomadelmedio
Instagram accounts for more information
✔️ InfoTerritorial
Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/infoterritorial/✔️
Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/infoterritorial/
✔️ Pablo Lada (MACh – Chubut Anti-Nuclear Movement)
Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/pablolada?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
✔️ Flavia Broffoni (XR Argentina)
Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/flaviabroffoni?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
✔️ Sur arriba (Cooperative journalism from Patagonia)
Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/surarriba_patagonia?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
✔️ Antu Quillén Cultural Center (in Epuyén)
Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/ccantuquillen?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
✔️ En Estos Días Patagonia (Narrative journalism by the Patagonian Journalism Foundation)
Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/enestosdiaspatagonia?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
✔️ Enfant Terrible
Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/infoterritorial?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
