Abstract

After two years of active resistance, in 1998, the people of Mehuí n in southern Chile succeeded in stopping the construction of a pipeline that would have spewed industrial waste from the largest pulp mill under construction in South America into Maiquillahue Bay. This article analyzes the power of the Defense Committee of Mehuín's discourse in mobilizing the people. The outcome of this conflict illustrates the committee's ability to connect the pipeline's threat with local transcendental meanings, while scientifically explaining the pipeline's ecological impact. Thus, residents could make sense of the danger in the context of their culture, be motivated to defend the bay, and also have their understanding of nature transformed. The case suggests that local communities may engage in a symbiotic and scientifically informed relation to nature and become wardens of their environment. (Environmental conflict, Chile, scientific and religious knowledge, political ecology). © 2004 The University of Pittsburgh. All rights reserved.