By Loreto Vasquez Salvador | Spokesperson for Asamblea Ciudadana Ultima Esperanza (Magallanes)
So far, the scale of the ammonia and green hydrogen projects undergoing environmental review in Magallanes left room for doubt about the magnitude of this so-called “green” investment. That speculation has ended. Citizens, active and organized, now face the greatest challenge yet: observing a project conceptualized over three years being finalized in just 60 days, in a highly hierarchical and unequal process that some even argue stifles meaningful citizen participation. This disregards the fact that civic participation is grounded in constitutional rights and international treaties that Chile has signed. In a time of multidimensional civilizational crisis—not just climatic, but also ecological, energetic, material, and social—it is vital to listen to communities. That listening is only possible when governments fulfill their negative duty to refrain from violating human rights, which itself depends on real civic participation. After all, what investors treat as a business opportunity is a vital space—not only a source of income, but a cradle of life. Extractivism robs not only territories, but people and realities.
Total Energies plan for mega-project in Magallanes
A few weeks ago, the largest mega-project in Magallanes was introduced: 616 wind turbines, a desalination plant, an export port, and other components to produce green hydrogen and ammonia. Located in San Gregorio, a rural municipality with no services for the roughly 10,000 construction workers needed. That demand won’t be met by laborers from the Magallanes region, which already boasts the country’s fourth lowest unemployment rate (6.6%, representing 6,867 people, men and women combined). Magallanes has remained the second most employed region since 2020, yet holds a 16-point gender gap, with nearly 40% of working-age women outside the labor market; this gap extends almost one full percentage point into informal work. These figures make obvious that constructing a project of this magnitude will spark internal migration to Magallanes, overwhelming health, housing, education, and security services. So where are the social benefits touted by the corporate sector?
Moreover, this form of development shuts women out of the industry—especially from well-paid or decision-making roles. How, then, can gender justice—a key prerequisite for a just energy transition or even a broader socio-ecological transformation—be achieved?
TotalEnergies’ project is the largest in the Americas and aims to position Chile as the world’s third-largest producer. This French company is widely known for human rights abuses and environmental negligence in Africa, Indonesia, Canada, and even France—where ongoing legal cases reveal non-compliance with environmental regulations, due diligence failures, and political corruption. These precedents matter if we aim for socio-ecological transformation anchored in environmental, gender, social justice, and reparations. The project must consider communities, local economies, community development, and protection of common goods and traditional ways of life. It should center energy sovereignty and community-driven solutions—not mere business opportunism, which, beyond economic speculation, threatens environmental legal protections and reverses precautionary principles amid uncertainty surrounding an unprecedented industry.
Is this energy “transition” led by ecologically problematic corporations with histories of corruption and human-rights violations really empowering a socio-ecological transformation? Or is it just a rapid fix for greenhouse gas emissions that fails to challenge growth, consumption, and production models built on dispossession and inequality? We ask: did the Chilean state conduct due diligence when signing agreements with the European development bank involving TotalEnergies to accelerate Chile’s energy transition? What does “accelerating the energy transition” truly imply?
Talking about energy means talking about energy sovereignty—as a fundamental right that enables health, food security, and public safety. We are accelerating a process, yet we have no concrete plan for Magallanes’ energy sovereignty. A significant rural population still depends on fossil fuels; oil wells for fracking are being reactivated, while the region has only three wind turbines feeding power into the grid.
True energy sovereignty in a sovereign nation begins with self-determination—and that requires empowering people with production tools, skills, and organizing models. Only then can energy resilience—our capacity to adapt, respond, and recover—become a reality.
This is one of many realities that civic organizations like ours aspire to build. Our work is fundamentally collaborative. It’s true that disagreement or the radical idea of equality often puts us at odds with power structures, and anti-environmental populism spreads narratives to shrink civic space—casting environmentalism as anti-development, and civic groups as outsiders threatening communities whose rights to self-determination are denied. In community spaces, the hierarchical corporate logic that bosses and overwhelms us with verbose contracts by virtue of purchasing power—but not education—does not operate.
We call upon you to defend our civic space and our democracy. Today it’s an environmental issue; tomorrow it could be dissenting thought—your opinion. Civic space is what makes us rights-bearing individuals. Enough with diminishing debate and underestimating community voices. We are informed, present, autonomous, and demand to speak as equals—not through anti-environmental populist filters, but through evidence, law, scholarship, situated experience, human rights, and rights-based constitutional and international cooperation. Faced with a multidimensional crisis, it is ill-conceived to approach it solely through economics—it is almost self-sabotage. Perhaps this is the paradox of the post-industrial man: sabotaging himself.
We ask: what do public development banks—who refuse loans to undemocratic states—think of the corporate climate that pressures institutional actors to shrink civic space and tacitly threaten environmental defenders?