Where an avocado is valued more than a person’s life

PETORCA, 23 March 2022:

Zoila Quiroz, 72, fondly remembers when her hometown Petorca, in central Chile, was home to a mighty river that gave life to the plants and animals – which were the livelihood of thousands of farmers.

But barely half a century later, Petorca – a village at the epicentre of Chile’s drought – has drastically changed.

Wells are drying up, crops and livestock are dying, and some 3,000 residents are getting their water from tanker trucks.

The hills surrounding the village are covered by thousands of leafy avocado trees – a symbol of the cruel monopolisation of water resources by private companies that have left many families, like Quiroz’s, suffering from chronic water shortages.

“They stole everything from us, they even took away our dignity. There was a time when we had to choose whether to take a shower or wash our clothes. We had no choice but to fight,” Quiroz bemoaned.

Three generations of women in Petorca have been affected by the injustice.

Zoila, her daughter Rosalba, 38, and grand-daughter Pascuala, 12, as well as many other women in the area who have become the leaders of the fight against water scarcity in Chile.

Chile, with 76% of its territory affected by water shortages, is suffering from the most severe water crisis in the entire western hemisphere, according to Greenpeace.

Experts blame the scarcity of rainfall – 2021 was the fourth driest year ever recorded – but also on the water ownership regime.

Some 80% of water resources in Chile are privately-owned, most by large agricultural, mining and energy companies.

In Petorca alone, 30 companies monopolise 60% of the water resources, noted Petorca Water Cooperative president Magdalena Morgan.

Several of those companies grow avocados, a fruit that requires enormous amounts of water for its cultivation.

“Here only those who pay have water. An avocado is worth more than a person. It is a model of exploitation, of dispossession, that is why this has become a war,” Morgan says.

Women, especially peasants, have been the key to tackling water scarcity because they are the ones who take care of the community while the men go out to work, generally to the mine, explained Morgan.

Marileu Avendaño, spokeswoman for the Movement for Water and Territories, echoed that sentiment.

Although water installations may seem “very masculine,” it has been the women of Petorca who have dug wells, installed pipes and set up organisations to manage water fairly.

“At the beginning, it was the older women of the rural community. But now, they are also younger women with university educations.”

But with fame and success comes violence. Many of the women who have been exposed in the media have been harassed and attacked.

“It is imperative to address the level of violence to which these women who are environmental defenders are exposed,” urged Amnesty International Chile executive director Rodrigo Bustos.

Carolina Vilches, one of the best known water advocates in Chile, spent decades in the field to defend the right to access to water.

Today, she has a seat at the convention that is drafting Chile’s new constitution and aims to include water as a public good and a priority for human consumption.

“The new Constitution can be the end of the current regulation, which has caused thousands of people to live without water,” said Paulina Bernal, territorial coordinator of Vilches, in central Chile.

“We have been fighting for years, but we don’t have much strength left. All our hope is in the new Constitution.”

– EFE