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Chile's unique Atacama desert sullied by world's junk
Chile's massive Atacama desert is a unique and fragile ecosystem that experts say is being threatened by piles of trash dumped there from around the world.
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Aerial view of the Alto Norte metallurgical industrial complex in the Atacama Desert, about 30 km south of Antofagasta, Chile, on November 8, 2022. (AFP/Martin Bernetti)
It may be one of the driest places on Earth -- a brutal, alien landscape where life seems impossible.
But Chile's massive Atacama desert is a unique and fragile ecosystem that experts say is being threatened by piles of trash dumped there from around the world.
Mountains of discarded clothing, a graveyard of shoes, and rows upon rows of scrapped tires and cars blight at least three regions of the desert in northern Chile.
"We are no longer just the local backyard, but rather the world's backyard, which is worse," Patricio Ferreira, mayor of the desert town of Alto Hospicio, told AFP.
The Atacama, with its striking otherworldly beauty and expansive salt flats, has also been transformed by intensive mining for copper and lithium.
Carmen Serrano, head of the Endemic Roots environmental NGO, said that most people see the Atacama as nothing more than "bare hills" where they can "extract resources or fill their pockets."
'Lack of global awareness'
