El Chaltén is a paradise for hikers. But the seasonal influx of tourists stretches the sanitation infrastructure to breaking point – and even a legal victory has not provided a solution
W
hen people in the Patagonian village of El Chaltén saw untreated waste flowing into waterways and found the sewage plant was faulty, they grew increasingly concerned about the health risks from pollution in two glacier-fed rivers, the Fitz Roy and Las Vueltas.
The incident in 2016 led Marie Anière Martínez, a conservationist with the Patagonian environmental organisation Boana, and Lorena Martínez, a Los Glaciares national park official, to form a group to investigate water contamination at the Unesco world heritage site.
Last year, they secured a landmark court ruling against water pollution in the Argentinian national park. Supported by the Escazú agreement, a regional treaty on environmental rights, residents filed a collective lawsuit, forcing authorities to acknowledge failures in waste management and commit to upgrading systems by January 2025.
