Chile road sets isolated towns vs. environmentalists

COCHRANE, Chile, Nov 27: Living in this small town in southern Chile, 2,000 km from his capital city Santiago and surrounded by snow-capped mountains, Domingo Arriagada feels cut off from most of his compatriots.

A formidable geography of rivers, mountains, fjords and coastal islands lies between him and the Chilean heartland, and it is easier for him to travel to neighboring Argentina than it is to reach nearby towns and cities in his own country.

''It's an age-old problem,'' said Arriagada, 57, one of the 3,000 inhabitants of the town of Cochrane, in the far south of South America. ''It's as if we lived at the end of the world. At times we feel forgotten about.'' Part of the problem is Chile's extraordinary shape.

A thin ribbon of land on the western coast of the continent, it's surface area is little bigger than that of Texas. However, the distance from one end of the country to the other is greater than the distance between Los Angeles and New York.

Throughout most of Chile the road system is good -- the Pan American highway runs from the northern border with Peru to the city of Puerto Montt, a distance of 3,080 km.

But from Puerto Montt south, roads are few and often unpaved, forcing residents to travel by boat or plane.

As southern Chile's fishing and timber industries grow and the area opens up to tourism, the government plans to plow money into the local transport infrastructure.

During her successful election campaign a year ago, President Michelle Bachelet vowed to do more to connect the remote southern regions of Chile with the rest of the country.

''After various studies, we've decided to invest 170 billion pesos (0 million) over the next six or seven years,'' said Juan Saldivia, a deputy minister for public works.

''We're talking about more than 20 billion pesos a year,'' he told Reuters.

However, the government's plan is controversial. Over the next four years, it wants to build a 64-km stretch of road through Pumalin, a nature reserve owned by Chile's best-known environmentalist, American former clothing magnate Douglas Tompkins. Tompkins bought more than 714,000 acres (289,00 hectares) of forest in southern Chile and turned it into the park, which is now run by a foundation.

Pumalin stretches from the Pacific coast to the Argentine border, effectively cutting Chile in two. At the moment there is no major road through it, meaning travelers have to make the journey by air or sea.

''Imagine it!,'' said Luis Gallardo, mayor of the town of Chaiten, 100 miles south of Puerto Montt. ''For 33 years I've lived between the towns of Puerto Montt and Chaiten and I've never been able to drive between the two.'' Tompkins is trying to persuade the government to build the road across a series of islands just off the coast, rather than through the park, but the government has rejected the idea.

The road-building plan could become the site of a new environmental battle in one of Latin America's healthiest and most modern countries.

In recent years Chileans have debated the toll that booming development is taking on their wilderness areas. Public opposition has already been fierce over big power projects, new mines and wood-pulp plants that produce pollution.

The government's ambition is to upgrade the ''Carretera Austral'', or southern highway, which the Chilean army starting building in 1976 but which is still only partially completed.

''We want to raise the standard of the road in those places where it exists and also keep building further to the south,'' Saldivia said.

Eventually, the government wants the road to reach the town of Villa O'Higgins, 1,240 km south of Puerto Montt and, in this thin sliver of a country, nearly 2,100 km from Santiago.

If it is successful, Arriagada and his fellow inhabitants in Cochrane may at last feel fully connected with the rest of Chile.

Reuters