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1: Winter Is Coming!
2: In George Martin´s masterpiece “A Song of Ice and Fire,” perhaps more familiar to
many of you as the HBO epic show “Game of Thrones,” these words are the motto of the
House of Stark- one of the Great Houses in the vast northern region of Westeros.
The motto is a warning – that no matter how good times might be now, the cruelty of
Winter is never far away and preparations for its imminent arrival must be made.
The motto is often interpreted in terms of political intrigues and impending wars. But
what the people in Westeros haveto fear most is the period of darkness known as thelong
winter, this brings famine and despair that they must endure when Nature turns against
them and where political power or wealth are of no use.
It could be argued that we have our own impending Westerosi Winter, heralded in the
form of global warming and climate change.
So how, like the Westerosi, can we take action to protect ourselves?
The Atacama Desert in Chile might offer some answers.
3: The Atacama Desert is the driest non polar desert in the world.
It is located in the north of Chile, and includes smaller areas in Perú, Bolivia and
Argentina. It covers an area of 105.000 square kilometers, and has areas over 3.500 m in
elevation. And due to its rocky dry nature it has often been compared to Mars. The
temperatures oscillate between -25°C at night and over 50°C in the shade during the day.
The Atacama landscape thus provides us with an interesting lens to view how global
warming and desertification might play out on the rest of Planet Earth. It also provides
an important opportunity to investigate how science, technology and partnerships
between stakeholders, can help protect us from the extremes of Nature.
4: Areas such as María Elena have not registered rainfalls since 16th century and as you
can see vegetationand fauna is absent. Most of thelandscape in this desert has an average
of 3mm rainfall per year. Yet remarkably, life has in fact adapted to these extreme
conditions. And we can look to this region for insights on how we might be able to best
protect our future from environmental extremities.

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5: With its large deposits of copper, lithium and silver, The Atacama Desert has also been
an important source of wealth for Chile, although far less so for the indigenous people of
the region who also have to deal with environmental issues resulting from the mining.
Nevertheles when the industrial production of synthetic fertilizers replaced the need for
saltpeter works, “nitrate towns” such as Humberstone weretransformed into ghost towns
with a devastating impact in the national budget and on the pampinos culture that had
been developed within these communities.
From places like Humberstone we have learnt one of our hardest lessons - that “with no
science and innovation, the economic growth will be just another mirage in the desert”.
But at the end of the day, not everything is doom and gloom.
6: Optimism can be derived from the fact that there are Species resilience to these harsh
environments. And along with being able to reimagine sustainable economic
development,
through science informed business ventures,
and genuine partnerships with key stakeholders,
these fragile communities in the Atacama Desert can have a positive future.
As we can see in this picture, places like Canchones, have been able to adapt to harsh
environmental conditions. And through understanding how, for example, the tamarugo
trees have been able to adapt and grow in this desert, we can share these insights with
other parts of the world which experience similar drought conditions to those of the
Atacama Desert.
7: One of the biggest challenges of course in a desert is dealing with the scarcity of fresh
water. Indigenous communities also have to deal with the contamination from mining
that has led to pollutants in the water supplies such as arsenic, lead and boron.
Plastics are another major pollutant – as a result of tourism and grossly inadequate waste
disposal policies. These plastics will take centuries to be degraded and re-integrated to
the soil. Oil spills are also having a detrimental effect on our beautiful environment in
Chile overall.

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We are currently developing and implementing a number of approaches designed to help
address sustainability issues with our region. We also believe these approaches can be
successfully exported to other places on our planet confronting similar challenges.
Our approaches combine biotechnologies, purpose designed business models, and
genuine partnerships between stakeholders (including producers, consumers, local
government, the business sector, and education institutions). From our perspective these
partnerships are key to promoting economic sustainability and reducing social
uncertainty in even the harshest of climates on our planet such as the Atacama Desert.
We place great priority on ensuring that the communities we are trying to help see
themselves as equal partners and can take ownership over their futures2 rather than
feeling that ‘solutions’ are being imposed on them from outside.
8: This is the case of our interaction with Aymará´s communities (the most frequent
ethnic group in Atacama Desert) from whom we have learnt the herding practices in the
desert.
This slide shows Mrs. Ángela Mamani sharing with one of my colleagues about the
challenges for her and her family to keep their resources maximized in goat livestock
production. Many in the Aymara communities are dependent on goat breeding for their
livelihoods.
The local government, with support from the mining companies and in partnership with
the Universidad Arturo Prat and de los Lagos, established the Center for Animal
Reproduction (CRAN). The specific mandate of CRAN is to use technologies such as in
vitro fertilisation to select goat herds already adapted to deal with the extreme climatic
conditions, and also to help diversify the range of products which can be marketed from
the breed. In addition, CRAN veterinary staff provide assistance on sanitary/hygiene
issues to improve the overall health of the livestock.
Complementing the technology transfer is the commissioning of university consultants to
help thegoat producers in constructing new marketing strategiesfor their increased range
of livestock products.
Since beginning our workin 2013we havebeen able togive assistance toover 100families
and as well mounting an experimental station in Canchones to serve as a science in action
laboratory.

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9: This station has also allowed us to develop other lines of research to address major
environmental issues with serendipity playing an interesting role and bringing to mind
the words of Louis Pasteur “in the fields of observation chance only favors the prepared
mind”.
During a rainy afternoon in Santiago, one of our colleagues: Patricio Núñez discovered a
major leak in his roof. So he decided in the urgency to plug the leak to cover it with some
plastic bags. After a fewweeksthe bags showed an intriguing cracking, which as a scientist
he couldn’t dismiss. So with some sampling and analysis he found evidence of plastic
biodegrading bacteria that are capable of transforming in a few weeks a significant
amount of plastic into organic matter reincorporated to the soil.
As we see in this micrography some of them munching a yummy plastic fiber.
These leads gave us the basis to start a new project in order to identify and maximize the
capabilities of these microorganisms with an aim to produce simple reactors or processes
to digest plastic waste in polluted landscapes urban, rural or remote.
10: Our sustainable environment research projects portfolio also includes the
improvement of drought tolerant crops, such as the protein enriched pseudocereal,
quinoa, which despite having adaptation to the desert its yield is still very low. Which
we´re aiming to boost with the experimental use of a Mexican origin innovation called
“solid rain”, consisting in a mixture of polymeric salts that keeps water away from
evaporation but having it mixturewith the soil allow plants to takeit gradually, enhancing
the chances to overcome drought hence to maximize the yield per area.
11: Also to ensure the availability of healthy water we have preliminary results with
common duckweed and plants from the same genus growing in extreme salty wetlands in
mountain areas close to Atacama desert.Theseplants are known tohave bio-accumulator
properties that we´re aiming to use to develop bio-filters useful for home drinkable water
treatment and projected to be used to treat natural resources employed for food
production.
12: As the desert is engulfed between two mountain ranges (Andes mountains at east and
Coast mountains at west), natural water resources are literally available day after day in
a thick fog called kamanchaka (word that means darkness in quechua) which take place

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in coastal mountain range. Nevertheless, the capture of this humidity have been very
elusive due to the use of not very efficient systems. But nowadays new technologies are
available as the one developed by companies such as French eole water which yields up
to 500 Liters per day with solar powered generators, giving the opportunity to capture
and distribute in a clean way freely available water.
13: What we believe is essential to counteract dystopian scenarios about our environment
is to have a synergy between the objectives and operations of all key stakeholders.
Government – both at national and regional levels (which is not always soeasy in thelong
strip of country that is Chile)!; the universities – such asArturoPrat which can collaborate
on share portfolios of research rather than directly compete; the private sector,
particularly young technology companies keen to translate our environmental research
into marketable products and services; and our vulnerable communities who wish not
only to preserve their precious cultures and traditions but to take ownership of new ways
to ensure they can have sustainable and happy livelihoods even in the harshest of
landscapes on our planet.
14: Finally, I will like to invite you all to be part of these endeavors, to participate in any
level of the value chain generation …and why not? Improve the world we live in.