Oh
So I went and did some quick research and
Opinions are divided in the agrarian town of Chinchero, where the airport is slated to open in 2025
It’s basically as bad as it sounds
They started breaking ground in 2019 but the government has been trying to build this airport since 2011. More and more of the locals don’t want it because of how it’ll destroy the area even though they’ve been offered a lot of money for their land and promised jobs. None of the scientists who work in the area want it. South America like Chile/Bolivia/Peru/Ecuador/etc etc etc are such unique and old places. The ecology in South America is so special and has species that are nowhere else in the world. The landscape is unusual and special. The people there have been able to maintain traditions despite colonization in a lot of cases. The artifacts there are priceless, we’ve lost so so so much to colonization, knowledge, architecture, culture, artifacts. These areas are delicate and need protection. A lot of the governments in South America have corruption, like anywhere else. The people and land are constantly sacrificed. The Atacama desert in Chile has so so much to protect and they’re mining nonstop for copper, polluting water, evicting eighty year olds and disabled people to make way for construction, piping away their water and plowing through a delicate desert ecosystem. There’s a clothes dump so big there you can see it from space
There’s so so much to lose in South America. If you visit the altiplano in Bolivia, there are native farmers living out there essentially off grid. Chile has many indigenous groups still despite being so industrialized. We still have Quechua, Aymara and Mapuche being spoken every day. The landscape MATTERS to us. It breaks my heart to see the land so disrespected and ruined. The people are connected to the land. You can talk to almost any indigenous group and they’ll tell you the same thing. It’s a cultural thing that was passed down for thousands of years. The shapes the mountains make against the sky, the way a lake sits between the hills, flocks of guanaco and vicuña grazing. The landscape is sacred and old
I know there are ecological battles everywhere right now with the rich and powerful crushing anyone in their way. I just had to say something because this hits so close to home and I ache thinking about my homelands being destroyed beyond recognition. I’m haunted by the sculpture in the middle of Inca ruins that’s an exact tiny replica of the mountains on the opposite side of the valley. The very shape of the rocks is special to us
