Nature has rights! Congress approves law to create the Biodiversity and Protected Areas Service
After 13 years of processing, the legislative process for the Nature Law concluded after the Chamber of Deputies approved the report issued by the joint commission in late May. The bill is therefore ready to be enacted.
It’s done! The Nature Law has successfully passed its final procedure and is on the verge of being enacted, after the Chamber of Deputies voted on and approved the report of the joint commission by 131 votes in favor. The law will create the Biodiversity and Protected Areas Service.
It is a tremendous result for the government. This law has been pending in Congress for 13 years and will now allow a public body to be created to care for Chile’s protected areas and the biodiversity found inside and outside of them. This service will also make it possible to better face the serious crises of biodiversity loss and climate change that are affecting Chile and the planet.
Environment Minister Maisa Rojas said, “today, our country took a historic step to protect our abundant nature. The Biodiversity and Protected Areas Service is a powerful tool to face the serious crises of biodiversity loss and climate change that are affecting Chile and the entire world.”
The minister added, “as a government, we are convinced that it is imperative to face the crisis of species and ecosystem loss. The creation of the service will enable us to do that, because it will provide the country with a public service completely focused on protecting the nature of the land and sea. It will also have the financing to manage protected areas.”
The Nature Law bill was sent to Congress to complete the requirements of Chile’s environmental institutional framework. The institutions that regulate this framework are currently the Environment Ministry, the Environment Superintendency (SMA) and the Environmental Assessment Service (SEA), in addition to the environmental courts.
The Biodiversity and Protected Areas Service focuses on four main areas:
- It creates a robust public service responsible for biodiversity protection.
- It addresses the institutional distribution of protected areas that, until now, were divided into five public services, causing disjointed management. This was concluded by a comptroller’s report released in 2021.
- It provides the country with management instruments for biodiversity conservation throughout the national territory, inside and outside of protected areas. These include identifying priority biodiversity sites, ecological restoration strategies and wetland protection.
- It strengthens regulations and provides robust and efficient financing for conservation. Chile stands out for its large marine (42%) and land (22%) protected areas. According to the 2022 Alternate Financial Report, this bill will bring about a significant increase of almost 58% in the State’s direct fiscal contribution allocated to environmental institutions.