Toxic violence in marine sacrificial zones: Developing blue justice through marine democracy in Chile

Abstract

Marine sacrificial zones are planned areas dedicated to the toxic violence of carbo-chemical port development around the world. In the marine environment in Chile, repeated fisher led new social movements have been raised regarding the need to create laws controlling marine pollution from combined coal power station/extraction complexes and realise participatory blue epistemic justice. A series of case studies from across Chile demonstrate the importance of integrating fisher observations of contamination. Interviews and participatory GIS shows how fisher communities LEK observations can be integrated from Quintero, Mejillones and Coronel, which help generalise about the participatory solutions to the impacts of other coastal industrial complexes. The social protests of 2020–2021 opened up a new space for environmental rights through a successful campaign for a new Chilean constitution, the importance of which is shown by the politization of the violence of these sacrificial zones locally and globally. Differently to the creation of the constitution by the neoliberal dictatorship, the participatory space afforded by a people’s constitution through a plebiscite means that environmental justice concerns can be implemented in concrete form.

Blue justice: A review of emerging scholarship and resistance movements

“…Much of the early scholarship on blue justice focused on injustices experienced by small-scale fishers. In contrast, more recent writing and the empirical cases reviewed here suggests that intersecting forms of oppression and marginalization render certain coastal individuals and groups vulnerable to blue injustices (Gustavsson et al, 2021;Anbleyth-Evans et al, 2022). For example, Indigenous women in the Arctic have higher levels of toxins in their blood than the general population (Schaebel et al, 2017).…”

“…This literature is drawing more explicitly on the environmental justice literature, which argues that exposures to environmental harms are distributed unevenly by race and class (Bullard, 1990;Bullard, 1994;Agyeman et al, 2016;Bennett et al, 2023). For example, Anbleyth-Evans et al, (2022) argue that "[b]lue justice, simply, is defined as achieving environmental justice in the marine environment". Yet, explicit engagement with race and blue injustices remains a gap for blue justice scholarship.…”

“…Consider Quintero-Puchuncaví Bay, Chile, for example (Valenzuela-Fuentes et al, 2021; Figure 1a). The town is referred to as a "sacrifice zone" or a place where the communities' quality of life is knowingly compromised in the name of capitalist growth and accumulation (Valenzuela-Fuentes et al, 2021;Anbleyth-Evans et al, 2022). The town hosts 15 heavy industries within a four square-mile radius, including copper smelting, an oil terminal, a coal-fired thermoelectric plant, and other refinery operations.…”

“…The town hosts 15 heavy industries within a four square-mile radius, including copper smelting, an oil terminal, a coal-fired thermoelectric plant, and other refinery operations. Unsafe levels of arsenic and cadmium have been confirmed in the area (Anbleyth-Evans et al, 2022). During one month in 2018, nearly 1,400 people residents were treated for gas poisoning (Larsson, 2020).…”

“…During one month in 2018, nearly 1,400 people residents were treated for gas poisoning (Larsson, 2020). In addition to the negative human health consequences, pollution from these extractive industries also causes damages to marine life in the area, undermining coastal livelihoods, culture, and well-being (Oyarzo-Miranda et al, 2020;Anbleyth-Evans et al, 2022).…”