AAlong with our thirst for fossil fuels, the destruction of nature by man has triggered the climatic and ecological crises that today threaten our life on this planet. A major goal for COP26 delegates is to improve the relationship of humans with nature: restore forests and wetlands to absorb more carbon; slow the loss of animal and insect species vital to our food systems; and protect the rivers and springs we depend on for water.
Elisa Loncon Antileo leads an attempt to rebalance this relationship and transform the human approach to the natural world in her country, Chile. In July, she was elected president of the 155-seat constitutional convention the South American nation launched to rewrite its dictatorship-era constitution. The process began after protests in 2019 against the country’s market-driven economic model, which critics say leads to both inequality and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources.
Chile is rewriting its constitution and Loncon wants the new document to reflect indigenous thinking on how to coexist with the natural world
Jutta Ulmer—Mauritius Images GmbH/Alamy
Loncon, a language and literature professor in Santiago, is part of Chile’s Mapuche community and holds one of 17 convention seats reserved for indigenous peoples. One of its priorities is to incorporate indigenous thinking on the environment into the constitution. “There is a development model based on the vision of nature as a resource that humans, especially men, can exploit and dominate,” she says. “But indigenous peoples have always had the philosophy that humans are interdependent with nature and should keep nature as mother.”
Read more: Chileans are about to vote on rewriting their entire Constitution. Will this turn a “social explosion” into a new blueprint for the country?
Perhaps the most pressing environmental question for Chile’s constitution is who has access to water resources. The country has suffered from a decade of painful drought, and the privatization of water rights since the 1980s under the current constitution has allowed corporations to alter the course of river basins and pump water from land for mining projects, leaving large areas to dry out.
Loncon grew up in a subsistence farming community in the province of Araucanía and remembers working the land and fetching native fruits, such as dark purple maqui berries and small bananas. chupones— from a nearby mountain. Now, thanks to the diversion of water to industrial eucalyptus and pine farms, she says it’s much harder to find those fruits or live that kind of life. And as climate change continues to exacerbate dry seasons, it can only get worse.
Loncon says the world can learn from the inclusion of indigenous voices in Chile’s constitutional draft as it accelerates efforts to address climate change. “We push the rights of Mother Earth into the conversation. From my point of view, this is an opportunity for Chile and the world in general to adopt the values of indigenous thought.
Learn more about TIME’s COP26 coverage: Meet the people working to achieve the COP26 agenda
More Must-Try Stories from TIME
