The salt flat that protects itself. A case for the Rights of Nature

Abstract

Through the case study of the Salar de Atacama, Chile, this work explores how environmental protection can go beyond conservation to become an opportunity and tool to resize the scale and presence of the extractive practices on the land.
The study proposes to define a model of ‘protection’ for this region that transcend the anthropocentric models of environmental protection born in the Western world. It designs the political space and a series of protocols that allow the shift from protection to environmental care, which is inclusive of ways of living of the indigenous population, expanded cross species kinship and extra human living beings united in life around the Salar de Atacama.