Moving away from a constitution that focused on social benefits, environmental rights, gender parity and indigenous rights, Chile on Sunday voted for the nation's right-wing parties to elect advisers who will draft a new constitution.&nbsp;

This, as per Reuters, marks a sharp shift from a progressive majority that drafted a failed first constitutional rewrite.&nbsp;

A tally of about 95.13 per cent of the ballots revealed that Chile's Republican Party, led by Jose Antonio Kast, secured nearly 35 per cent of the votes.

Of the rest of the votes, a coalition of traditional right-wing parties gained just over 20 per cent, while President Gabriel Boric's left-wing coalition received about 29 per cent of the votes. The remaining votes went to centrist parties.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/photos/in-pics-protests-rallies-demonstrations-across-the-world-heres-how-people-marked-may-day-587983">IN PICS | Protests, rallies, demonstrations: Here's how people marked May Day across the world</a>

Former conservative firebrand presidential candidate Jose Antonio Kast, who lost to Boric in 2021, during a speech in Santiago branded his opponent's government a "failed" one.

"Chile has defeated a failed government."

"Today is the first day of a better future, a new start for Chile," said Kast.

The final results will determine the exact makeup of a 50-seat Constitutional Council that will be in charge of drafting a new constitution.&nbsp;

Any articles will be approved with a three-fifths majority.&nbsp;

The constitutional advisers elected on Sunday will commence the process of drafting a new constitution in June. The draft will be based on a draft compiled by 24 constitutional experts appointed by Congress in March. Once the draft is complete, voters will have the opportunity to approve or reject it in December.

Reuters reported&nbsp;that this marks the latest step in a years-long effort to overhaul Chile's dictatorship-era text. The effort began after nearly 80 per cent of Chileans voted to draft a new constitution in 2020. This was preceded by violent protests against inequality.

The first rewrite was drafted by largely independent and left-leaning constituents with a focus on social welfare, environmental protections, gender equality, and indigenous rights. Despite being viewed as one of the most progressive constitutions globally, a lot of voters deemed it too divisive, and the procedure was embroiled in controversies.

The draft was rejected by 62 per cent of the voters. For backing the first constitution rewrite, Boric has suffered a setback and his approval ratings have plummeted.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/chileans-reject-new-proposed-constitution-in-referendum-512944">Chileans reject new proposed constitution in referendum</a>

In March of last year, Boric assumed office amid high hopes of reform, but as the struggling economy and rising crime&nbsp;become the foremost concerns of voters, his popularity has waned.&nbsp;

Since voter rejection of the first draft, the president has distanced himself from the process while promising to support it. Boric reassured reporters after casting his vote on Sunday that the government would respect the council's autonomy and serve as a guarantor while assisting its requests.

"The government won't meddle with the process and will respect the entity's autonomy in its deliberation."

Delivered remarks from Santiago's La Moneda presidential palace he called for unity and urged the opposition to learn from the previous failed attempt, stating that he wanted the Republican Party, to avoid making the same blunders as his party. Boric stated that the process should not be about vendettas but prioritising Chile's interests.

"I want to invite the Republican Party, that's won an unquestionable majority, to not make the same mistakes we made," he said. "This process can't be about vendettas, but putting Chile first."

(With inputs from agencies)

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Moving away from a constitution that focused on social benefits, environmental rights, gender parity and indigenous rights, Chile on Sunday voted for the nation's right-wing parties to elect advisers who will draft a new constitution.

Moving away from a constitution that focused on social benefits, environmental rights, gender parity and indigenous rights, Chile on Sunday voted for the nation's right-wing parties to elect advisers who will draft a new constitution. This, as per Reuters, marks a sharp shift from a progressive majority that drafted a failed first constitutional rewrite. A tally of about 95.13 per cent of the ballots revealed that Chile's Republican Party, led by Jose Antonio Kast, secured nearly 35 per cent of the votes. Of the rest of the votes, a coalition of traditional right-wing parties gained just over 20 per cent, while President Gabriel Boric's left-wing coalition received about 29 per cent of the votes. The remaining votes went to centrist parties. Also read | IN PICS | Protests, rallies, demonstrations: Here's how people marked May Day across the world Former conservative firebrand presidential candidate Jose Antonio Kast, who lost to Boric in 2021, during a speech in Santiago branded his opponent's government a "failed" one. "Chile has defeated a failed government." "Today is the first day of a better future, a new start for Chile," said Kast. The final results will determine the exact makeup of a 50-seat Constitutional Council that will be in charge of drafting a new constitution. Any articles will be approved with a three-fifths majority. The constitutional advisers elected on Sunday will commence the process of drafting a new constitution in June. The draft will be based on a draft compiled by 24 constitutional experts appointed by Congress in March. Once the draft is complete, voters will have the opportunity to approve or reject it in December. Reuters reported that this marks the latest step in a years-long effort to overhaul Chile's dictatorship-era text. The effort began after nearly 80 per cent of Chileans voted to draft a new constitution in 2020. This was preceded by violent protests against inequality. The first rewrite was drafted by largely independent and left-leaning constituents with a focus on social welfare, environmental protections, gender equality, and indigenous rights. Despite being viewed as one of the most progressive constitutions globally, a lot of voters deemed it too divisive, and the procedure was embroiled in controversies. The draft was rejected by 62 per cent of the voters. For backing the first constitution rewrite, Boric has suffered a setback and his approval ratings have plummeted. Also read | Chileans reject new proposed constitution in referendum In March of last year, Boric assumed office amid high hopes of reform, but as the struggling economy and rising crime become the foremost concerns of voters, his popularity has waned. Since voter rejection of the first draft, the president has distanced himself from the process while promising to support it. Boric reassured reporters after casting his vote on Sunday that the government would respect the council's autonomy and serve as a guarantor while assisting its requests. "The government won't meddle with the process and will respect the entity's autonomy in its deliberation." Delivered remarks from Santiago's La Moneda presidential palace he called for unity and urged the opposition to learn from the previous failed attempt, stating that he wanted the Republican Party, to avoid making the same blunders as his party. Boric stated that the process should not be about vendettas but prioritising Chile's interests. "I want to invite the Republican Party, that's won an unquestionable majority, to not make the same mistakes we made," he said. "This process can't be about vendettas, but putting Chile first." (With inputs from agencies) WATCH WION LIVE HERE You can now write for wionews.com and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us here.

Chile elects right-wing parties to rewrite constitution after rejecting 'world's most progressive' charter

Rarely does a country get a chance to lay out its ideals as a nation and write a new constitution for itself. Almost never does the climate and ecological crisis play a central role.

That is, until now, in Chile, where a national reinvention is underway. After months of protests over social and environmental grievances, 155 Chileans have been elected to write a new constitution amid what they have declared a “climate and ecological emergency.”

Their work will not only shape how this country of 19 million is governed. It will also determine the future of a soft, lustrous metal — lithium — lurking in the salt waters beneath this vast ethereal desert beside the Andes Mountains.

Lithium is an essential component of batteries. And as the global economy seeks alternatives to fossil fuels to slow down climate change, lithium demand — and prices — are soaring.

Mining companies in Chile, the world’s second-largest lithium producer after Australia, are keen to increase production, as are politicians who see mining as crucial to national prosperity. They face mounting opposition, though, from Chileans who argue that the country’s very economic model, based on extraction of natural resources, has exacted too high an environmental cost and failed to spread the benefits to all citizens, including its Indigenous people.

And so it falls to the Constitutional Convention to decide what kind of country Chile wants to be. Convention members will decide many things, including: How should mining be regulated, and what voice should local communities have over mining? Should Chile retain a presidential system? Should nature have rights? How about future generations?

Around the world, nations face similar dilemmas — in the forests of central Africa, in Native American territories in the United States — as they try to tackle the climate crisis without repeating past mistakes. For Chile, the issue now stands to shape the national charter. “We have to assume that human activity causes damage, so how much damage do we want to cause?” said Cristina Dorador Ortiz, a microbiologist who studies the salt flats and is in the Constitutional Convention. “What is enough damage to live well?”

Then there is water. Amid a crippling drought supercharged by climate change, the Convention will decide who owns Chile’s water. It will also weigh something more basic: What exactly&nbsp;is&nbsp;water?

‘Sacrifice Zones’

Chile’s current constitution was written in 1980 by people hand-picked by its then military ruler, Augusto Pinochet. It opened the country to mining investments and allowed water rights to be bought and sold.

Chile prospered by exploiting its natural riches: copper and coal, salmon and avocados. But even as it became one of Latin America’s richest nations, frustrations mounted over inequality. Mineral-rich areas became known as “sacrifice zones” of environmental degradation. Rivers began drying up.

Anger boiled over into huge protests starting in 2019. A national referendum followed, electing a diverse panel to rewrite the constitution.

On Dec. 19 came another turning point. Voters elected Gabriel Boric, a 35-year-old former student activist, as president. He had campaigned to expand the social safety net, increase mining royalties and taxes, and create a national lithium company.

The morning after his victory, the stock price of the country’s biggest lithium producer, Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile, or SQM, fell 15%.

The Father of Volcanoes

One-fifth of the world’s lithium is produced by SQM, most of it in the Atacama Desert in the shadow of ancient volcanoes, including the oldest and still active one, Lascar. The Lickanantay, the area’s Indigenous people, call Lascar the father of all volcanoes.

From above, the mine looks as if someone has spread a glistening blue and green quilt in the middle of this pale desert.

The riches lie in the brine underground. Day and night, SQM pumps out the brine, along with freshwater from five wells. Pipes carry brine to a series of ponds.

Then, the sun goes to work.

The Atacama has the highest solar radiation levels on Earth. Water evaporates astonishingly fast, leaving mineral deposits behind. Magnesium comes out of the ponds. Also potassium. Lithium remains in a viscous yellow-green pool, which SQM converts into powdery white lithium carbonate for battery-makers abroad.

SQM was a state-owned maker of fertilizer chemicals until Pinochet turned it over to his then son-in-law, Julio Ponce Lerou, in 1983. More recently, it has been fined by Chile’s stock market regulator and by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Ponce, no longer chair, retains 30% ownership.

Today, SQM is riding a lithium bull market. Carlos Díaz, its vice president for lithium, said the company seeks to increase capacity from 140,000 tons of lithium carbonate to 180,000 tons by 2022. Díaz said the firm wants to “produce lithium as green as possible,” including by reducing saltwater extraction by half by 2030 and by becoming “carbon neutral” by 2040.

There is a good reason. Nearby, a copper mine, called Escondida, was fined $93 million for extracting water and causing what a Chilean court called “irreparable damage.”

The mining industry is bracing for change. A law to increase royalties is working through the Legislature. And the Constitutional Convention is weighing provisions that could require more local decision-making.

Joaquin Villarino, president of the Mining Council, the industry lobby, said both could diminish Chile’s appeal to investors. He voiced particular worry that some of the Convention members appeared to be against mining altogether, though he did not name any. “I hope this is not what we will have in our constitution,” he said, “because Chile is a mining country.”

The Convention is also likely to make water a public good. But another question will bear on the industry even more: Is brine — the saltwater beneath the desert — technically water? Mining companies assert it is not, because it is fit for neither human nor animal consumption.

“There is a clear separation between what is coming from the mountain, that is the continental water, and what you have in the brine in the Salar de Atacama,” Díaz said.

Brine extraction is currently governed by the mining code. The new constitution could change that. It could call brine water.

Crisis in a Bright Lagoon

In the shadow of Lascar, not far from the SQM mine, shimmers a lagoon encrusted in bright white salt. Jordán Jofré Lique, a geologist who works with the Atacama Indigenous Council, walks along its edge. A solitary flamingo crosses the salt crust.

The bird is looking for food, mainly brine shrimp, and this afternoon the lake is unusually dry. Lique, 28, is not sure why. But it worries him. The health of the&nbsp;salar&nbsp;(salt flat in Spanish) constantly worries him, considering two major forces beyond his control: the warming of the planet and the mining industry’s extraction of water here in one of the world’s driest regions. The flamingo gives up its search, unfurls its pale pink wings and flies.

Lique, a Lickanantay man, knows the tracks of the salt flat. His grandfather herded sheep and goats here.

He was once set to go work for a mining company. It was a path to a good salary. Instead, he found himself studying the effects of mining on his people’s land. “Maybe it was an act of God or life’s circumstances,” he said.

Some Indigenous people say mining companies have divided their communities with offers of money and jobs. Lique’s organization is shunned by some people because it accepts research funds from Albemarle, a US&nbsp;company that also mines lithium locally.

His group has installed more than a dozen sensors to measure water levels, salinity and temperature. He is particularly worried about “the mixing zone,” a sensitive ecosystem where freshwater coexists with the saltwater underground. The bright evaporation ponds act like mirrors, which Lique suspects heats the air.

Independent research has found declining soil moisture and ground cover in the salt flat, along with rising daytime temperatures, evidence of a strong correlation between the expansion of lithium mining and the drying of the area.

A government census has recorded a slight decline in the Andean flamingo population in the Atacama since 1997, whereas their numbers remain unchanged elsewhere in Chile. Alejandra Castro, a park ranger in charge of flamingo reserves, suspects climate change.

SQM says its monitors show brine levels decreasing marginally in the mixing zone and that the flora and fauna remain healthy.

The Atacama is full of surprises. Parts of it are so dry, the ground is sharp and craggy, with no vegetation. Then the landscape changes suddenly, giving way to ankle-high shrubs or a forest of towering tamarugo trees. A dirt road twists through the bare ocher hills, depositing you abruptly in a ravine carrying mountain spring water.

Lique sees the compounding effects of climate change. Water on his family’s farm, near the mine, evaporates more quickly. Rains are more extreme. One alfalfa patch did not grow this year. The corn is short.

But Lique is most worried about how the extraction of so much brine could change the delicate equilibrium of sun, earth and water, especially amid climate change. “The best scenario is that it doesn’t get worse than this,” he said. “The worst scenario is that everything dries up.”

Clues to the Future

Dorador, the Constitutional Convention member, walks through a busy market in her hometown, Antofagasta. “The constitution is the most important law in the country,” she tells a man selling mangoes.

He listens politely.

Dorador, 41, describes what the assembly is discussing: water, housing, health care. She explains the timeline: a draft constitution by July, followed by a national vote.

Behind her, a man yells out the price of corn. Another is selling rabbits. One woman vents about shoulder pain. A few tell her they have no time.

Dorador became drawn to the microorganisms that have survived for millions of years in the salt flats. “We can learn a lot of things about climate change studying the&nbsp;salares, because they are already extreme,” she said. “You can find clues of the past and also clues of the future.”

Dorador is vying to be the convention’s president. She wants the constitution to recognize that “humans are part of nature.” She bristles when asked if lithium extraction is necessary to pivot away from fossil fuel extraction. Of course, the world should stop burning oil and gas, she said, but not by ignoring yet-unknown ecological costs. “Someone buys an electric car and feels very good because they’re saving the planet,” she said. “At the same time, an entire ecosystem is damaged. It’s a big paradox.”

Indeed, the questions facing this Convention are not Chile’s alone. The world faces the same reckoning as it confronts climate change and biodiversity loss amid widening social inequities: Does the search for climate fixes require reexamining humanity’s relationship to nature itself?

“We have to face some very complex 21st-century problems,” said Maisa Rojas, a climate scientist at the University of Chile. “Our institutions are, in many respects, not ready.”

Rarely does a country get a chance to lay out its ideals as a nation and write a new constitution for itself. Almost never does the climate and ecological crisis play a central role.

Rarely does a country get a chance to lay out its ideals as a nation and write a new constitution for itself. Almost never does the climate and ecological crisis play a central role. That is, until now, in Chile, where a national reinvention is underway. After months of protests over social and environmental grievances, 155 Chileans have been elected to write a new constitution amid what they have declared a “climate and ecological emergency.” Their work will not only shape how this country of 19 million is governed. It will also determine the future of a soft, lustrous metal — lithium — lurking in the salt waters beneath this vast ethereal desert beside the Andes Mountains. Lithium is an essential component of batteries. And as the global economy seeks alternatives to fossil fuels to slow down climate change, lithium demand — and prices — are soaring. Mining companies in Chile, the world’s second-largest lithium producer after Australia, are keen to increase production, as are politicians who see mining as crucial to national prosperity. They face mounting opposition, though, from Chileans who argue that the country’s very economic model, based on extraction of natural resources, has exacted too high an environmental cost and failed to spread the benefits to all citizens, including its Indigenous people. And so it falls to the Constitutional Convention to decide what kind of country Chile wants to be. Convention members will decide many things, including: How should mining be regulated, and what voice should local communities have over mining? Should Chile retain a presidential system? Should nature have rights? How about future generations? Around the world, nations face similar dilemmas — in the forests of central Africa, in Native American territories in the United States — as they try to tackle the climate crisis without repeating past mistakes. For Chile, the issue now stands to shape the national charter. “We have to assume that human activity causes damage, so how much damage do we want to cause?” said Cristina Dorador Ortiz, a microbiologist who studies the salt flats and is in the Constitutional Convention. “What is enough damage to live well?” Then there is water. Amid a crippling drought supercharged by climate change, the Convention will decide who owns Chile’s water. It will also weigh something more basic: What exactly is water? ‘Sacrifice Zones’ Chile’s current constitution was written in 1980 by people hand-picked by its then military ruler, Augusto Pinochet. It opened the country to mining investments and allowed water rights to be bought and sold. Chile prospered by exploiting its natural riches: copper and coal, salmon and avocados. But even as it became one of Latin America’s richest nations, frustrations mounted over inequality. Mineral-rich areas became known as “sacrifice zones” of environmental degradation. Rivers began drying up. Anger boiled over into huge protests starting in 2019. A national referendum followed, electing a diverse panel to rewrite the constitution. On Dec. 19 came another turning point. Voters elected Gabriel Boric, a 35-year-old former student activist, as president. He had campaigned to expand the social safety net, increase mining royalties and taxes, and create a national lithium company. The morning after his victory, the stock price of the country’s biggest lithium producer, Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile, or SQM, fell 15%. The Father of Volcanoes One-fifth of the world’s lithium is produced by SQM, most of it in the Atacama Desert in the shadow of ancient volcanoes, including the oldest and still active one, Lascar. The Lickanantay, the area’s Indigenous people, call Lascar the father of all volcanoes. From above, the mine looks as if someone has spread a glistening blue and green quilt in the middle of this pale desert. The riches lie in the brine underground. Day and night, SQM pumps out the brine, along with freshwater from five wells. Pipes carry brine to a series of ponds. Then, the sun goes to work. The Atacama has the highest solar radiation levels on Earth. Water evaporates astonishingly fast, leaving mineral deposits behind. Magnesium comes out of the ponds. Also potassium. Lithium remains in a viscous yellow-green pool, which SQM converts into powdery white lithium carbonate for battery-makers abroad. SQM was a state-owned maker of fertilizer chemicals until Pinochet turned it over to his then son-in-law, Julio Ponce Lerou, in 1983. More recently, it has been fined by Chile’s stock market regulator and by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Ponce, no longer chair, retains 30% ownership. Today, SQM is riding a lithium bull market. Carlos Díaz, its vice president for lithium, said the company seeks to increase capacity from 140,000 tons of lithium carbonate to 180,000 tons by 2022. Díaz said the firm wants to “produce lithium as green as possible,” including by reducing saltwater extraction by half by 2030 and by becoming “carbon neutral” by 2040. There is a good reason. Nearby, a copper mine, called Escondida, was fined $93 million for extracting water and causing what a Chilean court called “irreparable damage.” The mining industry is bracing for change. A law to increase royalties is working through the Legislature. And the Constitutional Convention is weighing provisions that could require more local decision-making. Joaquin Villarino, president of the Mining Council, the industry lobby, said both could diminish Chile’s appeal to investors. He voiced particular worry that some of the Convention members appeared to be against mining altogether, though he did not name any. “I hope this is not what we will have in our constitution,” he said, “because Chile is a mining country.” The Convention is also likely to make water a public good. But another question will bear on the industry even more: Is brine — the saltwater beneath the desert — technically water? Mining companies assert it is not, because it is fit for neither human nor animal consumption. “There is a clear separation between what is coming from the mountain, that is the continental water, and what you have in the brine in the Salar de Atacama,” Díaz said. Brine extraction is currently governed by the mining code. The new constitution could change that. It could call brine water. Crisis in a Bright Lagoon In the shadow of Lascar, not far from the SQM mine, shimmers a lagoon encrusted in bright white salt. Jordán Jofré Lique, a geologist who works with the Atacama Indigenous Council, walks along its edge. A solitary flamingo crosses the salt crust. The bird is looking for food, mainly brine shrimp, and this afternoon the lake is unusually dry. Lique, 28, is not sure why. But it worries him. The health of the salar (salt flat in Spanish) constantly worries him, considering two major forces beyond his control: the warming of the planet and the mining industry’s extraction of water here in one of the world’s driest regions. The flamingo gives up its search, unfurls its pale pink wings and flies. Lique, a Lickanantay man, knows the tracks of the salt flat. His grandfather herded sheep and goats here. He was once set to go work for a mining company. It was a path to a good salary. Instead, he found himself studying the effects of mining on his people’s land. “Maybe it was an act of God or life’s circumstances,” he said. Some Indigenous people say mining companies have divided their communities with offers of money and jobs. Lique’s organization is shunned by some people because it accepts research funds from Albemarle, a US company that also mines lithium locally. His group has installed more than a dozen sensors to measure water levels, salinity and temperature. He is particularly worried about “the mixing zone,” a sensitive ecosystem where freshwater coexists with the saltwater underground. The bright evaporation ponds act like mirrors, which Lique suspects heats the air. Independent research has found declining soil moisture and ground cover in the salt flat, along with rising daytime temperatures, evidence of a strong correlation between the expansion of lithium mining and the drying of the area. A government census has recorded a slight decline in the Andean flamingo population in the Atacama since 1997, whereas their numbers remain unchanged elsewhere in Chile. Alejandra Castro, a park ranger in charge of flamingo reserves, suspects climate change. SQM says its monitors show brine levels decreasing marginally in the mixing zone and that the flora and fauna remain healthy. The Atacama is full of surprises. Parts of it are so dry, the ground is sharp and craggy, with no vegetation. Then the landscape changes suddenly, giving way to ankle-high shrubs or a forest of towering tamarugo trees. A dirt road twists through the bare ocher hills, depositing you abruptly in a ravine carrying mountain spring water. Lique sees the compounding effects of climate change. Water on his family’s farm, near the mine, evaporates more quickly. Rains are more extreme. One alfalfa patch did not grow this year. The corn is short. But Lique is most worried about how the extraction of so much brine could change the delicate equilibrium of sun, earth and water, especially amid climate change. “The best scenario is that it doesn’t get worse than this,” he said. “The worst scenario is that everything dries up.” Clues to the Future Dorador, the Constitutional Convention member, walks through a busy market in her hometown, Antofagasta. “The constitution is the most important law in the country,” she tells a man selling mangoes. He listens politely. Dorador, 41, describes what the assembly is discussing: water, housing, health care. She explains the timeline: a draft constitution by July, followed by a national vote. Behind her, a man yells out the price of corn. Another is selling rabbits. One woman vents about shoulder pain. A few tell her they have no time. Dorador became drawn to the microorganisms that have survived for millions of years in the salt flats. “We can learn a lot of things about climate change studying the salares, because they are already extreme,” she said. “You can find clues of the past and also clues of the future.” Dorador is vying to be the convention’s president. She wants the constitution to recognize that “humans are part of nature.” She bristles when asked if lithium extraction is necessary to pivot away from fossil fuel extraction. Of course, the world should stop burning oil and gas, she said, but not by ignoring yet-unknown ecological costs. “Someone buys an electric car and feels very good because they’re saving the planet,” she said. “At the same time, an entire ecosystem is damaged. It’s a big paradox.” Indeed, the questions facing this Convention are not Chile’s alone. The world faces the same reckoning as it confronts climate change and biodiversity loss amid widening social inequities: Does the search for climate fixes require reexamining humanity’s relationship to nature itself? “We have to face some very complex 21st-century problems,” said Maisa Rojas, a climate scientist at the University of Chile. “Our institutions are, in many respects, not ready.”

Chile rewrites its constitution, confronting climate change head-on

Rarely does a country get a chance to lay out its ideals as a nation and write a new constitution for itself. Almost never does the climate and ecological crisis play a central role.

That is, until now, in Chile, where a national reinvention is underway. After months of protests over social and environmental grievances, 155 Chileans have been elected to write a new constitution amid what they have declared a “climate and ecological emergency.”

Their work will not only shape how this country of 19 million is governed. It will also determine the future of a soft, lustrous metal — lithium — lurking in the salt waters beneath this vast ethereal desert beside the Andes Mountains.

Lithium is an essential component of batteries. And as the global economy seeks alternatives to fossil fuels to slow down climate change, lithium demand — and prices — are soaring.

Mining companies in Chile, the world’s second-largest lithium producer after Australia, are keen to increase production, as are politicians who see mining as crucial to national prosperity. They face mounting opposition, though, from Chileans who argue that the country’s very economic model, based on extraction of natural resources, has exacted too high an environmental cost and failed to spread the benefits to all citizens, including its Indigenous people.

And so it falls to the Constitutional Convention to decide what kind of country Chile wants to be. Convention members will decide many things, including: How should mining be regulated, and what voice should local communities have over mining? Should Chile retain a presidential system? Should nature have rights? How about future generations?

Embedded in their discussions is a global dilemma over whether the world can address the climate crisis without repeating past mistakes. “We have to assume that human activity causes damage, so how much damage do we want to cause?” said Cristina Dorador Ortiz, a microbiologist who studies the salt flats and is in the Constitutional Convention. “What is enough damage to live well?”

Then there is water. Amid a crippling drought supercharged by climate change, the Convention will decide who owns Chile’s water. It will also weigh something more basic: What exactly&nbsp;is&nbsp;water?

‘Sacrifice Zones’

Chile’s current constitution was written in 1980 by people hand-picked by its then military ruler, Augusto Pinochet. It opened the country to mining investments and allowed water rights to be bought and sold.

Chile prospered by exploiting its natural riches: copper and coal, salmon and avocados. But even as it became one of Latin America’s richest nations, frustrations mounted over inequality. Mineral-rich areas became known as “sacrifice zones” of environmental degradation. Rivers began drying up.

Anger boiled over into huge protests starting in 2019. A national referendum followed, electing a diverse panel to rewrite the constitution.

On Dec. 19 came another turning point. Voters elected Gabriel Boric, a 35-year-old former student activist, as president. He had campaigned to expand the social safety net, increase mining royalties and taxes, and create a national lithium company.

The morning after his victory, the stock price of the country’s biggest lithium producer, Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile, or SQM, fell 15%.

The Father of Volcanoes

One-fifth of the world’s lithium is produced by SQM, most of it in the Atacama Desert in the shadow of ancient volcanoes, including the oldest and still active one, Lascar. The Lickanantay, the area’s Indigenous people, call Lascar the father of all volcanoes.

From above, the mine looks as if someone has spread a glistening blue and green quilt in the middle of this pale desert.

The riches lie in the brine underground. Day and night, SQM pumps out the brine, along with freshwater from five wells. Pipes carry brine to a series of ponds.

Then, the sun goes to work.

The Atacama has the highest solar radiation levels on Earth. Water evaporates astonishingly fast, leaving mineral deposits behind. Magnesium comes out of the ponds. Also potassium. Lithium remains in a viscous yellow-green pool, which SQM converts into powdery white lithium carbonate for battery-makers abroad.

SQM was a state-owned maker of fertilizer chemicals until Pinochet turned it over to his then son-in-law, Julio Ponce Lerou, in 1983. More recently, it has been fined by Chile’s stock market regulator and by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Ponce, no longer chair, retains 30% ownership.

Today, SQM is riding a lithium bull market. Carlos Díaz, its vice president for lithium, said the company seeks to increase capacity from 140,000 tons of lithium carbonate to 180,000 tons by 2022. Díaz said the firm wants to “produce lithium as green as possible,” including by reducing saltwater extraction by half by 2030 and by becoming “carbon neutral” by 2040.

There is good reason. Nearby, a copper mine, called Escondida, was fined $93 million for extracting water and causing what a Chilean court called “irreparable damage.”

The mining industry is bracing for change. A law to increase royalties is working through the Legislature. And the Constitutional Convention is weighing provisions that could require more local decision-making.

Joaquin Villarino, president of the Mining Council, the industry lobby, said both could diminish Chile’s appeal to investors. He voiced particular worry that some of the Convention members appeared to be against mining altogether, though he did not name any. “I hope this is not what we will have in our constitution,” he said, “because Chile is a mining country.”

The Convention is also likely to make water a public good. But another question will bear on the industry even more: Is brine — the saltwater beneath the desert — technically water? Mining companies assert it is not, because it is fit for neither human nor animal consumption.

“There is a clear separation between what is coming from the mountain, that is the continental water, and what you have in the brine in the Salar de Atacama,” Díaz said.

Brine extraction is currently governed by the mining code. The new constitution could change that. It could call brine water.

Crisis in a Bright Lagoon

In the shadow of Lascar, not far from the SQM mine, shimmers a lagoon encrusted in bright white salt. Jordán Jofré Lique, a geologist who works with the Atacama Indigenous Council, walks along its edge. A solitary flamingo crosses the salt crust.

The bird is looking for food, mainly brine shrimp, and this afternoon the lake is unusually dry. Lique, 28, is not sure why. But it worries him. The health of the&nbsp;salar&nbsp;(salt flat in Spanish) constantly worries him, considering two major forces beyond his control: the warming of the planet and the mining industry’s extraction of water here in one of the world’s driest regions. The flamingo gives up its search, unfurls its pale pink wings and flies.

Lique, a Lickanantay man, knows the tracks of the salt flat. His grandfather herded sheep and goats here.

He was once set to go work for a mining company. It was a path to a good salary. Instead, he found himself studying the effects of mining on his people’s land. “Maybe it was an act of God or life’s circumstances,” he said.

Some Indigenous people say mining companies have divided their communities with offers of money and jobs. Lique’s organization is shunned by some people because it accepts research funds from Albemarle, a U.S. company that also mines lithium locally.

His group has installed more than a dozen sensors to measure water levels, salinity and temperature. He is particularly worried about “the mixing zone,” a sensitive ecosystem where freshwater coexists with saltwater underground. The bright evaporation ponds act like mirrors, which Lique suspects heats the air.

Independent research has found declining soil moisture and ground cover in the salt flat, along with rising daytime temperatures, evidence of a strong correlation between the expansion of lithium mining and the drying of the area.

A government census has recorded a slight decline in the Andean flamingo population in the Atacama since 1997, whereas their numbers remain unchanged elsewhere in Chile. Alejandra Castro, a park ranger in charge of flamingo reserves, suspects climate change. “Each lake system is essential and must deliver its optimal water table levels to sustain future generations of chicks,” Castro said.

SQM says its monitors show brine levels decreasing marginally in the mixing zone and that the flora and fauna remain healthy.

The Atacama is full of surprises. Parts of it are so dry, the ground is sharp and craggy, with no vegetation. Then the landscape changes suddenly, giving way to ankle-high shrubs or a forest of towering tamarugo trees. A dirt road twists through the bare ocher hills, depositing you abruptly in a ravine carrying mountain spring water.

Lique sees the compounding effects of climate change. Water on his family’s farm, near the mine, evaporates more quickly. Rains are more extreme. One alfalfa patch did not grow this year. The corn is short.

But Lique is most worried about how the extraction of so much brine could change the delicate equilibrium of sun, earth and water, especially amid climate change. “The best scenario is that it doesn’t get worse than this,” he said. “The worst scenario is that everything dries up.”

Clues to the Future

Dorador, the Constitutional Convention member, walks through a busy market in her hometown, Antofagasta. “The constitution is the most important law in the country,” she tells a man selling mangoes.

He listens politely.

Dorador, 41, describes what the assembly is discussing: water, housing, health care. She explains the timeline: a draft constitution by July, followed by a national vote.

Behind her, a man yells out the price of corn. Another is selling rabbits. One woman vents about shoulder pain. A few tell her they have no time.

Dorador became drawn to the microorganisms that have survived for millions of years in the salt flats. “We can learn a lot of things about climate change studying the&nbsp;salares, because they are already extreme,” she said. “You can find clues of the past and also clues of the future.”

Dorador is vying to be the convention’s president. She wants the constitution to recognize that “humans are part of nature.” She bristles when asked if lithium extraction is necessary to pivot away from fossil fuel extraction. Of course the world should stop burning oil and gas, she said, but not by ignoring yet-unknown ecological costs. “Someone buys an electric car and feels very good because they’re saving the planet,” she said. “At the same time, an entire ecosystem is damaged. It’s a big paradox.”

Indeed, the questions facing this Convention are not Chile’s alone. The world faces the same reckoning as it confronts climate change and biodiversity loss amid widening social inequities: Does the search for climate fixes require reexamining humanity’s relationship to nature itself?

“We have to face some very complex 21st-century problems,” said Maisa Rojas, a climate scientist at the University of Chile. “Our institutions are, in many respects, not ready.”

Rarely does a country get a chance to lay out its ideals as a nation and write a new constitution for itself. Almost never does the climate and ecological crisis play a central role. That is, until now, in Chile, where a national reinvention is underway. After months of protests over social and environmental grievances, 155 Chileans have been elected to write a new constitution amid what they have declared a “climate and ecological emergency.” Their work will not only shape how this country of 19 million is governed. It will also determine the future of a soft, lustrous metal — lithium — lurking in the salt waters beneath this vast ethereal desert beside the Andes Mountains. Lithium is an essential component of batteries. And as the global economy seeks alternatives to fossil fuels to slow down climate change, lithium demand — and prices — are soaring. Mining companies in Chile, the world’s second-largest lithium producer after Australia, are keen to increase production, as are politicians who see mining as crucial to national prosperity. They face mounting opposition, though, from Chileans who argue that the country’s very economic model, based on extraction of natural resources, has exacted too high an environmental cost and failed to spread the benefits to all citizens, including its Indigenous people. And so it falls to the Constitutional Convention to decide what kind of country Chile wants to be. Convention members will decide many things, including: How should mining be regulated, and what voice should local communities have over mining? Should Chile retain a presidential system? Should nature have rights? How about future generations? Embedded in their discussions is a global dilemma over whether the world can address the climate crisis without repeating past mistakes. “We have to assume that human activity causes damage, so how much damage do we want to cause?” said Cristina Dorador Ortiz, a microbiologist who studies the salt flats and is in the Constitutional Convention. “What is enough damage to live well?” Then there is water. Amid a crippling drought supercharged by climate change, the Convention will decide who owns Chile’s water. It will also weigh something more basic: What exactly is water? ‘Sacrifice Zones’ Chile’s current constitution was written in 1980 by people hand-picked by its then military ruler, Augusto Pinochet. It opened the country to mining investments and allowed water rights to be bought and sold. Chile prospered by exploiting its natural riches: copper and coal, salmon and avocados. But even as it became one of Latin America’s richest nations, frustrations mounted over inequality. Mineral-rich areas became known as “sacrifice zones” of environmental degradation. Rivers began drying up. Anger boiled over into huge protests starting in 2019. A national referendum followed, electing a diverse panel to rewrite the constitution. On Dec. 19 came another turning point. Voters elected Gabriel Boric, a 35-year-old former student activist, as president. He had campaigned to expand the social safety net, increase mining royalties and taxes, and create a national lithium company. The morning after his victory, the stock price of the country’s biggest lithium producer, Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile, or SQM, fell 15%. The Father of Volcanoes One-fifth of the world’s lithium is produced by SQM, most of it in the Atacama Desert in the shadow of ancient volcanoes, including the oldest and still active one, Lascar. The Lickanantay, the area’s Indigenous people, call Lascar the father of all volcanoes. From above, the mine looks as if someone has spread a glistening blue and green quilt in the middle of this pale desert. The riches lie in the brine underground. Day and night, SQM pumps out the brine, along with freshwater from five wells. Pipes carry brine to a series of ponds. Then, the sun goes to work. The Atacama has the highest solar radiation levels on Earth. Water evaporates astonishingly fast, leaving mineral deposits behind. Magnesium comes out of the ponds. Also potassium. Lithium remains in a viscous yellow-green pool, which SQM converts into powdery white lithium carbonate for battery-makers abroad. SQM was a state-owned maker of fertilizer chemicals until Pinochet turned it over to his then son-in-law, Julio Ponce Lerou, in 1983. More recently, it has been fined by Chile’s stock market regulator and by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Ponce, no longer chair, retains 30% ownership. Today, SQM is riding a lithium bull market. Carlos Díaz, its vice president for lithium, said the company seeks to increase capacity from 140,000 tons of lithium carbonate to 180,000 tons by 2022. Díaz said the firm wants to “produce lithium as green as possible,” including by reducing saltwater extraction by half by 2030 and by becoming “carbon neutral” by 2040. There is good reason. Nearby, a copper mine, called Escondida, was fined $93 million for extracting water and causing what a Chilean court called “irreparable damage.” The mining industry is bracing for change. A law to increase royalties is working through the Legislature. And the Constitutional Convention is weighing provisions that could require more local decision-making. Joaquin Villarino, president of the Mining Council, the industry lobby, said both could diminish Chile’s appeal to investors. He voiced particular worry that some of the Convention members appeared to be against mining altogether, though he did not name any. “I hope this is not what we will have in our constitution,” he said, “because Chile is a mining country.” The Convention is also likely to make water a public good. But another question will bear on the industry even more: Is brine — the saltwater beneath the desert — technically water? Mining companies assert it is not, because it is fit for neither human nor animal consumption. “There is a clear separation between what is coming from the mountain, that is the continental water, and what you have in the brine in the Salar de Atacama,” Díaz said. Brine extraction is currently governed by the mining code. The new constitution could change that. It could call brine water. Crisis in a Bright Lagoon In the shadow of Lascar, not far from the SQM mine, shimmers a lagoon encrusted in bright white salt. Jordán Jofré Lique, a geologist who works with the Atacama Indigenous Council, walks along its edge. A solitary flamingo crosses the salt crust. The bird is looking for food, mainly brine shrimp, and this afternoon the lake is unusually dry. Lique, 28, is not sure why. But it worries him. The health of the salar (salt flat in Spanish) constantly worries him, considering two major forces beyond his control: the warming of the planet and the mining industry’s extraction of water here in one of the world’s driest regions. The flamingo gives up its search, unfurls its pale pink wings and flies. Lique, a Lickanantay man, knows the tracks of the salt flat. His grandfather herded sheep and goats here. He was once set to go work for a mining company. It was a path to a good salary. Instead, he found himself studying the effects of mining on his people’s land. “Maybe it was an act of God or life’s circumstances,” he said. Some Indigenous people say mining companies have divided their communities with offers of money and jobs. Lique’s organization is shunned by some people because it accepts research funds from Albemarle, a U.S. company that also mines lithium locally. His group has installed more than a dozen sensors to measure water levels, salinity and temperature. He is particularly worried about “the mixing zone,” a sensitive ecosystem where freshwater coexists with saltwater underground. The bright evaporation ponds act like mirrors, which Lique suspects heats the air. Independent research has found declining soil moisture and ground cover in the salt flat, along with rising daytime temperatures, evidence of a strong correlation between the expansion of lithium mining and the drying of the area. A government census has recorded a slight decline in the Andean flamingo population in the Atacama since 1997, whereas their numbers remain unchanged elsewhere in Chile. Alejandra Castro, a park ranger in charge of flamingo reserves, suspects climate change. “Each lake system is essential and must deliver its optimal water table levels to sustain future generations of chicks,” Castro said. SQM says its monitors show brine levels decreasing marginally in the mixing zone and that the flora and fauna remain healthy. The Atacama is full of surprises. Parts of it are so dry, the ground is sharp and craggy, with no vegetation. Then the landscape changes suddenly, giving way to ankle-high shrubs or a forest of towering tamarugo trees. A dirt road twists through the bare ocher hills, depositing you abruptly in a ravine carrying mountain spring water. Lique sees the compounding effects of climate change. Water on his family’s farm, near the mine, evaporates more quickly. Rains are more extreme. One alfalfa patch did not grow this year. The corn is short. But Lique is most worried about how the extraction of so much brine could change the delicate equilibrium of sun, earth and water, especially amid climate change. “The best scenario is that it doesn’t get worse than this,” he said. “The worst scenario is that everything dries up.” Clues to the Future Dorador, the Constitutional Convention member, walks through a busy market in her hometown, Antofagasta. “The constitution is the most important law in the country,” she tells a man selling mangoes. He listens politely. Dorador, 41, describes what the assembly is discussing: water, housing, health care. She explains the timeline: a draft constitution by July, followed by a national vote. Behind her, a man yells out the price of corn. Another is selling rabbits. One woman vents about shoulder pain. A few tell her they have no time. Dorador became drawn to the microorganisms that have survived for millions of years in the salt flats. “We can learn a lot of things about climate change studying the salares, because they are already extreme,” she said. “You can find clues of the past and also clues of the future.” Dorador is vying to be the convention’s president. She wants the constitution to recognize that “humans are part of nature.” She bristles when asked if lithium extraction is necessary to pivot away from fossil fuel extraction. Of course the world should stop burning oil and gas, she said, but not by ignoring yet-unknown ecological costs. “Someone buys an electric car and feels very good because they’re saving the planet,” she said. “At the same time, an entire ecosystem is damaged. It’s a big paradox.” Indeed, the questions facing this Convention are not Chile’s alone. The world faces the same reckoning as it confronts climate change and biodiversity loss amid widening social inequities: Does the search for climate fixes require reexamining humanity’s relationship to nature itself? “We have to face some very complex 21st-century problems,” said Maisa Rojas, a climate scientist at the University of Chile. “Our institutions are, in many respects, not ready.”

Thousands of Chileans celebrate across the country after there was overwhelming voting in favour of replacing dictatorship-era constitution in a referendum on Sunday.&nbsp;

With over 50 per cent of the voted counted, the "Approve" campaign had won 77.9 per cent of the vote, while the "Reject" campaign securing 22.10 per cent, as reported by news agency AFP.&nbsp;

Also read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/polls-open-in-chile-on-whether-to-rewrite-dictatorship-era-constitution-337838">Polls open in Chile on whether to rewrite dictatorship-era constitution</a>

There were celebrations across the country with thousands seen gathering on the streets of Santiago and blowing horns to celebrate the victory over dumping the constitution that was designed during the regime of 1973-1990 dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Also read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/churches-burnt-as-chile-protest-anniversary-turns-violent-336293">Churches burnt as Chile protest anniversary turns violent</a>

"I never imagined that us Chileans would be capable of uniting for such a change!" said Maria Isabel Nunez.&nbsp;

President Sebastian Pinera also accepted the result of the plebiscite, asking the nation to collectively work for a "new constitution".&nbsp;

"This plebiscite is not the end, it is the beginning of a path that we must all walk together to agree on a new constitution for Chile," Pinera said in a speech addressed from his Moneda Palace.&nbsp;

"Until now, the constitution has divided us. From today we must all work together so that the new constitution is the great framework of unity, stability and the future."

Thousands of Chileans celebrate across the country after there was overwhelming voting in favour of replacing dictatorship-era constitution in a referendum on Sunday.

Thousands of Chileans celebrate across the country after there was overwhelming voting in favour of replacing dictatorship-era constitution in a referendum on Sunday. With over 50 per cent of the voted counted, the "Approve" campaign had won 77.9 per cent of the vote, while the "Reject" campaign securing 22.10 per cent, as reported by news agency AFP. Also read | Polls open in Chile on whether to rewrite dictatorship-era constitution There were celebrations across the country with thousands seen gathering on the streets of Santiago and blowing horns to celebrate the victory over dumping the constitution that was designed during the regime of 1973-1990 dictator Augusto Pinochet. Also read | Churches burnt as Chile protest anniversary turns violent "I never imagined that us Chileans would be capable of uniting for such a change!" said Maria Isabel Nunez. President Sebastian Pinera also accepted the result of the plebiscite, asking the nation to collectively work for a "new constitution". "This plebiscite is not the end, it is the beginning of a path that we must all walk together to agree on a new constitution for Chile," Pinera said in a speech addressed from his Moneda Palace. "Until now, the constitution has divided us. From today we must all work together so that the new constitution is the great framework of unity, stability and the future."

Chileans vote in massive numbers to replace dictatorship-era constitution