OCENANA ADVERTISEMENT YANKED FROM BILLBOARD

Chilean publicity company Publicitaria.cl unexpectedly pulled an Oceana environmental video advertisement off a prominent billboard in downtown Santiago on Tuesday. The previously approved video was critical of one the country’s most powerful business groups, Celulosa Arauco y Constitución (Celco).

Representatives from the publicity company could only state that the ad did not comply with their editorial policy. Marcel Claude, executive director of Oceana, immediately denounced the move as being politically motivated and accused the municipality of Santiago of pressuring Publicitaria.cl to remove the sign.

“It seems ridiculous that they are talking about an editorial line when they saw the video, approved it, and let it run for four days” said Claude.

The ad in question shows dead bodies of rare black-necked swans allegedly killed by industrial waste dumped in the Cruces River by Celco’s Valdivia pulp and paper plant. The plant was closed down last June after local community groups blamed the company for contaminating the city of Valdivia’s drinking water and polluting the nearby Carlos Anwandter Nature Sanctuary, home to the swans.

Following the plant’s closing, the company sought permission by President Ricardo Lagos to install a pipeline to route their waters away from the Cruces River and into ocean waters offshore of Corral. The plan was approved, as well a request to increase its arsenic emissions from .001 mg/l to .05 mg/l, the maximum permitted for drinking water in Chile (ST, Sept. 9).

Recently, 400 hundreds new cases of dead black-neck swans were reported in the Cruces river resort of Niebla, located downstream from the plant. Celco still maintains that the deaths have nothing to do with their emissions.

In the midst of all this controversy, Oceana has been working to raise public awareness about the environmental damage caused by the company. The recently pulled advertisement was intended to bring the environmental issue to the attention of citizens in the capital.
After the ad was pulled, Claude announced that Oceana would take legal action against the municipality for its alleged role in pressuring Publicitaria.cl to remove the ad.