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Benetton will make available to the government of the province of Chubut in Patagonia (Argentina) approximately 7500 hectares of land
In the first months of 2006, Benetton will make available 7,500 hectares of land to the local government of Chubut in Patagonia (Argentina), so that it may be used for the needs of the indigenous populations. It is the end of a process that has seen as protagonist a family and groups of Mapuche activists, the Argentinean government and Nobel Prize winner Pérez Esquivel as well as Benetton itself (represented mainly by Luciano Benetton).
It all began in August 2002, when Mapuche couple Atilio Curiñanco and Rosa Nahuelquir occupied without authorization 385 hectares of land in the Santa Rosa area – near Esquel – belonging to the Compañia de Tierras Sud Argentino (property of Edizioni Holding, of the Benetton family). In fact, after many attempts at mediation to convince the family to leave the land that they had illegally occupied, the Compañia de Tierras Sud Argentino began legal proceedings to confirm the legitimacy of their own claim on the plot in question. The case – which absolved the Curiñanco family of the penal accusation of encroachment, because there were no violent or occult acts during the occupation – established the legality of the Compañia’s land title confirming the expulsion of the family.
The incident brought to light a spiny, centuries old problem that of the relationship between the indigenous communities and the Argentinean land. It also highlighted opposing concepts on the right of property and on the meaning of being the owner of a place: on one side the “western” concept of property and of its owners, coming from Roman law and a capitalist economy; on the other the Mapuche cosmovision by which being an owner means being part of a place, belonging to nature, being a descendant of a community that has lived there for eons.
Some groups of Mapuche activists began an international media campaign that, besides targeting Benetton, was about a bigger, older issue: the configuration of the country of Argentina in the XIX century. The issue was to do with the rights of indigenous communities, with their longing for historical reconciliation after centuries of marginalization.
And so Benetton decided to open up the debate on these themes, and thanks also to the interest of Nobel Prize winning Argentinean Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, in 2004 met with the Mapuche family in Rome, together with the city’s mayor Walter Veltroni and Esquivel himself.
The objective was that of coming to a solution which would be positive for everyone: the proposal by Benetton to give a much larger piece of land than the couple had occupied but external to the property (to clarify not those 385 hectares originally occupied) was rejected by the Curiñancos, who would accept only the Santa Rosa land, land of their ancestors.
Although Benetton as a company could not legitimize a similar claim within its property, the company did decide to take on an active role in contributing to finding a solution to this ancient problem. In the hope of beginning a larger process that would also involve other businesses and the Argentinean government.
And so here is the devolution: as already mentioned, Benetton will return around 7,500 hectares of land (situated 50km from Gualjaina and 150 km from Esquel) to the local government of Chubut. The land – that is good for either grazing or cultivation – has a primary water source because it runs along the Chubut River for 10 km. It is also close to the provincial road #12, to a local school (school #86) and to a field producing wind power, thus guaranteeing basic services.
At the same time Benetton is renewing its company policy to invest in the long term and in the area in which it works. The Compañia de Tierras in fact is very far from the image of feudal landowners that has been attributed to it by the Mapuche activists: its lands are used for the raising of sheep and give work to six hundred people, all locals or people residing in Patagonia with their families. There are also other projects on the drawing board: from the setting up of sustainable forests in some unproductive zones of Leleque and El Maiten to the construction of an abattoir for the exporting of lamb and a new tanning factory.
(28/10/2005)
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