Juan
Pablo Orrego is a Chilean environmentalist who helped to found and coordinates
Grupo de Acción por el Biobío (GABB), which seeks to stop construction of six
dams along the Biobío River in Chile. Orrego and other environmentalists sought
to stop the building of the dam for many reasons. The dams would greatly impact
the ecology of the river and its surrounding areas. In addition, the Pehuenche
indigenous people would lose their lands if the dam were built. Finally, the state-owned
utility company that was to build the dams was privatized near the end of dictator
Pinochet's regime and took control of more than 90% of Chile's water rights. With
the building of the six dams, the private utility company would also have a monopoly
of Chile's energy supply as well. Despite years of lobbying nationally and internationally,
seeking legal actions and organizing massive protests, the first dam was completed
in 1997, and a second in 2004. But the campaign has been successful in stopping
the remaining dams, which has saved much of the river, and it helped to win the
indigenous people a much better relocation settlement than they had been given.
GABB's work has also helped to bring to public awareness, in Chile and around
the world, issues of energy monopoly and indigenous people's rights when it comes
to development goals. In 1997, Juan Pablo Orrego received the Goldman Environmental
Prize and in 1998 he received the Right Livelihood Award (often called the Alternative
Nobel Prize) ”...for his personal courage, self-sacrifice and perseverance in
working for sustainable development in Chile.”
