As Michelle Bachelet begins her second four-year term as Chile’s president, her government is pursuing ambitious environmental goals it has set for its first 100 days. Most notable among them is to settle the fate of HidroAysén, the highly controversial US$10 billion project to build five large hydroelectric dams in Chilean Patagonia. Bachelet, Chile’s president from 2006 to 2010, won a second term in December and returned to office on March 11. Her government immediately launched a 60-day review of the previous administration’s partial environmental approval of HidroAysén, a joint project of Italy’s Endesa and Chile’s Colbún. In a March 19 press conference, Pablo Badenier, Bachelet’s environment minister, stated there were “illegal defects” in the partial approval granted for the 2,750-megawatt... [Log in to read more]
