CSAV joined forces with DIMAO and the Bellavista Sector Neighborhood Council in San Antonio to enhance the site by planting native species and contributing to local biodiversity.

Compañía Sud Americana de Vapores promoted the initiative to plant native trees adjacent to the Padre André Coindre School, together with the Municipal Environment, Sanitation and Beautification Department (DIMAO) and the Holanda and Víctor Domingo Silva neighborhood councils. Participants transplanted three species of trees native to the port area—quillay, peumos and maitenes—in order to protect the native flora.

For CSAV, this initiative falls within its ESG pillar of protecting biodiversity and, in this case, is also related to contributing to local well-being and quality of life. It is also part of the community outreach objective, as most community members are former students and parents of the Padre André Coindre School, where CSAV is currently working on an infrastructure improvement project.

“We want to work together with the community to address the gaps that they themselves have brought to our attention. Rehabilitating public spaces is a need that they have expressed. That is why we have coordinated with the environmental department and the neighbors themselves to begin to change their neighborhoods by reclaiming spaces and green areas and preventing them from becoming micro-garbage dumps,” said Yolanda Videla, CSAV’s Head of Community Engagement.

This reforestation activity is the second such initiative carried out by CSAV together with the community and DIMAO:

“We are very pleased. Last week we held a revegetation day with children from the sector and now we are joining neighbors to revegetate with native species that are very important for people to know about and care for,” said Paula Pino, from DIMAO.

“It is a good initiative because of the times we are living in. What’s better, we have the André Coindre (school) with its playgrounds and tree planting. The place is very lively, so that children from the school and the surrounding areas can visit it,” said community leader María Soledad Astorga from the Holanda sector.

Macarena Pinto Arce, president of the Víctor Domingo Silva Neighborhood Council, added that “it is great that they come to the neighborhoods to see how the spaces are being rehabilitated. I think that rehabbing spaces is a good initiative from the municipality. This used to be a garbage dump and now it is a beautiful landscape.”