On nature and resources at the end of the earth...
I was standing chilled but happy (I knew enough by now to have come with a coat) at a late-night outdoor barbecue held here in Santiago recently on the cusp of our Southern winter, as is the weather-aloof wont of the Chileans I've met. I was talking to a friend who works for an environmental consulting firm; the kind of place where environmental experts produce reports and programs for big firms to mitigate the environmental impact of their various development projects to keep it within the law (which here in Chile wasn't saying much, at least until recently). She was troubled. Her face was tan and somehow windswept-looking as she talked about her recent work in the field. She'd been visiting a wild and distant river in the high mountains of the south -- somewhere in that part of the country renowned for its beauty yet so remote and inhospitable that my usual travel yearnings are dulled by the expected hardship. She had spent days traveling down this inaccessible river, that she said slices through high walls of rock on either side, in a boat with a guide who fished the whole way, pulling his fresh catch out of the naturally untouched waters. She fell in love, with the river, and she made her report. Her client plans to dam the river, presumably to create needed energy. Her report: the environmental impact would be low, since so few human beings can or do access the river anyway. But it didn't feel right to her that she had gotten to know this lovely part of the world that, perhaps soon, no one else will, thanks in part to her work.