Paper short abstract:

Private conservation areas and privately developed condominiums are transforming the politics of water in the Futawillimapu, southern Chile. While the environmental outcomes differ, these neoliberal land politics infringe on the territorial autonomy of the Mapuche-Williche Pueblo.

Paper long abstract:

Rural land management strategies involving private conservation areas and privately developed condominiums are transforming the politics of water in the Futawillimapu, Mapuche-Williche territory of southern Chile. Increasingly, private conservation areas are building small hydropower projects and other water diversions within park boundaries and generating conflicts over the legality of these decisions. Simultaneously, neighboring lands zoned for agriculture are being illegally transitioned by inmobiliarias (real estate companies) to condominiums in a frenzy of private speculation. Inmobiliarias’ strategies are emergent; however, their rapid and often hectic growth tends to affect water flows in two critical ways. First, they clear cut large sites of native forest for access roads and development sites, creating erosion and altered surface water flows in the Andean and Coastal mountains. Second, they often seize groundwater and surface water in larger quantities than initially reported, affecting water quantity and quality. Ultimately, Chile’s neoliberal model of managing water and land as separate goods creates the conditions for rural water grabs. While the environmental outcomes of these two forms of land control drastically differ, both forms of neoliberal land politics infringe on the territorial autonomy of the Mapuche-Williche Pueblo.