TOURISM DROPS IN VALDIVIA

The tourist industry in Valdivia is struggling to stay alive as fewer visitors decide to visit the city famous for its rivers and natural beauty. Some locals blame Celulosa Arauco and Constitución’s (Celco) Valdivia pulp and paper plant, which has contaminated the Cruces River and damaged the region’s natural beauty, for keeping tourists away.

According to a local tourism study, river tours are down 60 percent for 2005. This represents a reduction of approximately 50,000 tourists this year.

“With the ecological disaster, the tourists just aren’t coming,” said Jimmy Davis, a businessman in Valdivia. “Everybody that contracted services in advance has cancelled because of the uncertain summer season.”

Environmental and local community groups blame Celco for contaminating the city of Valdivia’s drinking water and polluting the nearby Carlos Anwandter Nature Sanctuary, killing thousands of the region’s endangered black-necked swans. River boat tours to the nature sanctuary have historically been a major attraction for tourists, but since the death of hundreds of the swans, “we’ve lost all the sanctuary tours,” Davis said.

Locals have scheduled a meeting with Óscar Santelices, Director of the National Tourism Service (SERNATUR) on Tuesday to discuss the compatibility of tourism and industrial interests. Locals have long complained that the government disproportionately favors Celco profits over local concerns.

The plant voluntarily shut down last June amid growing protest of the plant’s waste disposal policies, but reopened on Aug 12 after receiving permission from 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 the plant’s arsenic emissions from .001 mg/l to .05 mg/l, the maximum permitted for drinking water in Chile (ST, Sept. 9).

The move to reopen was not greeted with much public enthusiasm in Valdivia, or in coastal communities near Corral where the pipeline was slated to be installed (ST, Sept. 23). Local businesses hope that the new tourism impact study will highlight the financial factor in the fight against Celco.
“Our objective is to find a middle ground between the forest industry and tourism,” said Víctor Herrero, owner of a Valdivian tourism business. “We need to know if there is a willingness to save and protect (all Valdivian businesses) or just a few.”