From Ecological Art to Dialogues on Transhumant Conservation: Our Participation in the 6th SOSOET Colloquium
Between August 3 and 5, Fundación Mar Adentro participated in the 6th Colloquium of the Chilean Society of Socioecology and Ethnoecology (SOSOET), held at the Sausalito Campus of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso. The gathering brought together more than 100 researchers, academics, students, activists, and community representatives to reflect on how to imagine shared futures in order to transform the present.
Through workshops, panels, artistic presentations, and poster sessions, the colloquium addressed topics such as agroecology, climate change, Indigenous knowledge, multispecies relationships, socioecological governance, art and ecology, socio-environmental conflicts, environmental education, and biocultural memory. In this context, our participation centered on two activities: the presentation of our latest book Recolección. Artes en defensa de la naturaleza en Chile and a dialogue titled “From Mountains to Sea: Transhumance and Biocultural Heritage in the Maipo River Basin”.
Recolección: A History of Art and the Defense of Nature
On August 5, we presented this publication, edited by Maya Errázuriz, Director of Art and Publications at Fundación Mar Adentro, together with Nélida Pohl and Catalina Valdés, with a foreword by Sara Larraín. Following its launch at the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural in Santiago on July 30, the book arrived at the colloquium as a space for dialogue on the relationships between art, activism, and ecology.
Recolección… brings together 68 projects developed in Chile over recent decades, accompanied by seven essays that reconstruct different genealogies of art and the defense of nature in the country, a methodological guide for ecological art projects, and a timeline. The latter broadens the perspective beyond institutions and publications, also incorporating actions and movements that, although they do not always fall within these categories, have shaped Chile’s environmental history. As Nélida Pohl explains, the book seeks to bring together “institutions that have contributed to the development of ecology, environmental activism, and environmental arts,” along with publications, actions, and movements that constitute significant gestures within this history.
Rather than proposing a linear history, Recolección… builds an archive of collective and transdisciplinary practices. Through the projects, essays, and timeline it brings together, the book also proposes different ways of approaching the intersection between art and ecology. As Maya Errázuriz explains, the team decided to group the projects in order to recognize the specificities that emerge from this intersection and, especially, how these artists carry out their practices, with whom they develop them, and for what purpose. This process gave rise to categories such as scientific illustration, artivism, ecofeminist and media arts, speculative fiction, bioart, interspecies and biocultural art, as well as ecological, community-based, and educational practices. Rather than functioning as closed compartments, these categories make it possible to recognize the diversity of formats and ways of relating that run through these experiences. In this context, individual authorship also becomes less central in collaborative processes, where working with other people and forms of knowledge takes on a fundamental role.
During the presentation, Catalina Valdés spoke about the choice of the cover image: Una roza en un bosque en el sur (1872), by Miguel Antonio Smith Irisarri. The painting depicts the burning of vegetation, a practice that has had ecological consequences in the territories of central and southern Chile. For Valdés, this image makes it possible to recognize that environmental history is also political history: the ways in which territories have been intervened in and transformed are linked to decisions and power relations.
The presentation was part of an art and ecology panel at the colloquium that also featured artistic research experiences, particularly sound-based ones. Among them was Citizen Ecoacoustics of the Quebrada de los Lúcumos Community, which uses listening as a research tool to address noise pollution in Valparaíso and involves the organization TSONAMI Arte Sonoro. Also presented was Sound Flows, a research project developed in the Putaendo Valley by artist and educator Ámbar Cádiz. The project addresses the loss of soundscapes associated with the water crisis and large-scale mining, and proposes sound as a tool for activating connections and reflection on the territory.
From Mountains to Sea: Transhumance as a Practice of Care
The second focus of Fundación Mar Adentro’s participation was the panel “From Mountains to Sea: Transhumance and Biocultural Heritage in the Maipo River Basin,” organized by Sebastián Carrasco, Conservation Projects Coordinator; Felipe Guarda, Head of Evaluation and Studies; and Tomás Altamirano, Conservation Director at FMA. The conversation brought together Fernando Iglesias, from the NGO Conservación Andina, who works alongside muleteers in the Maipo mountain range; Diana Rojas Cañete, manager and coordinator of Corredores de Vida, with experience in community-based conservation initiatives in Maipú; and Diego Urrejola, biologist and Executive Director of Fundación Cosmos, an organization working to conserve the Humedal Río Maipo Nature Sanctuary. Drawing on these different experiences, the panel explored ways of relating to and caring for the territory throughout the basin.
Sebastián Carrasco opened the dialogue by asking about the meaning of the word transhumance. From the Latin trans- (from one side to another) and humus (earth or soil), the concept refers to the seasonal movement of livestock between winter and summer pastures. The conversation proposed broadening this definition to understand biocultural transhumance also as the movement of knowledge, vocabularies, relationships with other species, and ways of naming and understanding the territory.
From the mountains, Fernando Iglesias presented the work of the NGO Conservación Andina with muleteers in the Maipo River basin. The initiative, funded by the 2026 FMA Fund, seeks to integrate transhumance into conservation strategies by recognizing the knowledge and practices of those who have historically traveled through these territories. The project combines participatory mapping, monitoring of the ecological effects of grazing, and regenerative livestock management techniques. The muleteers themselves participate in monitoring ecosystem changes and recovering their cultural heritage. After three years of regenerative management, the project has recorded an increase in vegetation cover in the monitored areas. These results offer another perspective on livestock activity: not only as a pressure on ecosystems, but also as a practice that, under certain forms of management, can contribute to their conservation. From the valley, Diana Rojas presented Corredores de Vida, another project funded by the 2026 FMA Fund, which addressed biodiversity fragmentation in the Maipo River basin, threatened by pollution, infrastructure, and overexploitation. The initiative connected 24 socio-environmental organizations from municipalities such as Maipú, Padre Hurtado, Curacaví, and Puente Alto, bringing together experiences in wetlands, plazas, and other biodiversity spaces. Through gatherings, field visits, workshops, volunteer activities, and artistic activities, they strengthened capacities in monitoring, participatory planning, and community leadership. More than 98 people participated, including local monitors and facilitators whose knowledge was recognized and compensated. The main outcome was a Community Action Plan for Regeneration, bringing together lessons learned, strategies, and methodologies to promote autonomous, collaborative, and replicable urban-rural management.
Finally, from the mouth of the Maipo River, Diego Urrejola, biologist and Executive Director of Fundación Cosmos, presented the organization’s work at the Humedal Río Maipo Nature Sanctuary alongside the Municipality of Santo Domingo. Since 2014, both institutions have worked to restore, conserve, and manage the wetland, a process that led to its designation as a Nature Sanctuary in 2020 and to the foundation’s management of the Park through a loan-for-use agreement since 2018. The wetland is understood as part of a larger system that integrates the Maipo River basin and the coastal area. It is thus a point of intersection between an Andean-coastal corridor and a Pacific corridor, connecting ecosystems from the mountains to the ocean.
The three experiences made it possible to view the basin from different scales and territories: the mountains and the practices of the muleteers; the valley and the community networks that sustain biodiversity spaces; and the river-sea interface, with the wetland as a meeting place for ecosystems and communities.
More than independent projects, these experiences revealed different ways of inhabiting, traveling through, and caring for the same territory. The conversation raised questions about how to keep these practices alive in a context marked by climate change and growing pressures on ecosystems, and how institutions can recognize them without stripping away the knowledge and relationships that give them meaning.
A Call to Imagine Futures
The VI Colloquium of the Chilean Society of Socioecology and Ethnoecology also opened the call for submissions for the third volume of its journal Saberes Socioambientales, which will focus on “A Land of Futures.” The publication seeks to bring together texts and creative works that allow us to think about the future from different perspectives.
The call includes six types of contributions: socio-environmental inquiries, memories and journeys, practical recommendations, opinion columns, artworks, and contributions from school-aged youth. Submissions will be accepted until October 6 and can be sent to saberes.sosoet@gmail.com.
Also
You can explore FMA’s previous participation in SOSOET colloquia through the following links: