2024 Reports

Navigating Environmental Justice in Risk Reduction to Address Socio-Spatial Inequalities in Chile's Coastal Wetlands

Visconti, Cristina

Cartagena is a town on the Chilean central coast, where climate related risks and geophysical hazards are exacerbated by urban dynamics of informality, touristification and degradation of ecological functioning of the coastal wet-lands, dunes and estuarine system. Vulnerability of population is very high and determined by socio-economic segregation and socio-spatial inequalities produced at structural level and amplified by a neoliberal model of planning. In Cartagena and more generally in Chile, vulnerable groups of population tend to dwell in high risk areas with no synergies in urban policies and planning systems to elaborate studies of risk and actions that integrate community knowledge and local perspectives. Top-down models and technocratic interpretation of risk led planning regulations contribute to maintaining socio-spatial inequalities. The case study explores the potentialities of collective mapping for co-production of knowledge as a practical tool that was experimented in Cartagena to co-create a collaborative study involving local civil society actors on the topic of risk reduction and local knowledge. The case provides lessons on: 1. Implementation of planning regulatory framework towards participatory study of risk; 2. Insights on the relation of social construction of risk and socio-spatial inequalities; 3. Methods of co-production as a tool to include procedural and recognitional justice in planning frameworks for risk reduction and climate adaptation.