Rightful resistance and activism through EIAs in Chile

In this chapter we examine how communities resist the siting of two different hydroelectric projects through the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process in southern Chile. We begin the chapter with a brief overview of how the EIA and its related environmental legislation evolved in Chile from the 1990s. We next turn our gaze to telling the story of how community actors and activists were able to enact forms of 'rightful resistance' through the respective EIA processes of the Añihuerraqui project in Curarrehue and against multinational Enel's Neltume project. We conclude that conducting rightful resistance through advocacy in EIAs is not sufficient to thwart the siting of projects and that other conditions are required for such an aim; these include the participation of activist NGO actors capable of campaigning against the project holder company; strong community leadership and ties; support from other governmental actors; and having well-defined local development plans determined by communities themselves that affirm incompatibility with the siting of megaprojects.