A note published in La Estrella de Valparaíso today reports on the visit of authorities and technicians from different municipalities in the country to the Las Salinas Plant Laboratory, as part of the Summer School “Mega Drought and Municipal Management in the face of the Effects of Climate Change”, organized by the Chilean Association of Municipalities. In Las Salinas, experts are studying native species such as romerillo, peumo and para de guanaco to create parks that require less irrigation and maintenance. The idea could be implemented in several municipalities. Romerillo, pata de guanaco, peumo, chupalla, and chilco are some of the plant species found in the Las Salinas sector of Viña del Mar, where the “Vegetable Laboratory” has been investigating for three years how to make green areas in cities adapt to climate change and water scarcity, reducing the use of municipal resources. It is an initiative of the real estate company Las Salinas, whose creators are working on a proposal of species that can be placed in public spaces reducing the use of human, economic and water capital as a result not only of the type of plants used, but also emphasizing how they combine and coexist, which would make them dispense with irrigation or maintenance.
For this purpose, they work with native and endemic plants attractive to pollinating agents, such as bees, plants that produce seeds for birds, etcetera. The project was presented at the talk “Mega drought and municipal management in the face of the effects of climate change” held in Viña del Mar, organized by the Chilean Association of Municipalities, where experts presented their method. “It is to reconstruct an ecosystemic equation that characterizes our territories in biogeographic terms. We save a lot of processes: species are not selected, they are replicated in the same way they are distributed, they are not maintained, the evolutionary history allows them to enter into the equations of spontaneity of native systems. You don’t have to prune them, you don’t have to water them, they maintain themselves. This means that cities can increase the square meters of green areas per inhabitant, since maintenance costs decrease,” explained Salvador Donghi, biologist and part of the Plant Laboratory. “It is an intelligent way of adapting to climate change because we have five to eight more years of water stress and we will not have water to irrigate the gardens”, added Donghi, who assured that “it is not a question of eliminating everything at once, but rather of trying out experiences with small planters”. Luis Álvarez, geographer, academic of the PUCV and part of the Plant Laboratory, said that “Viña del Mar does not have frosts and therefore there will be species that cannot be taken from the coast to the interior, but in those places there are species that adapt to temperatures below zero. All cities have a vegetational floor, all have native species that can be taken to their green areas”. The councilwoman of Quilpué, Paula Castro, commented that “this knowledge can be applied, the idea is to take this to the other councilmen, (…) to achieve harmonious spaces that can survive in this reality”, while her peer of Villa Alemana, Kesia Navarro, added that “it seems to me a very good idea that can be implemented in the commune having the political will and defining which are the particular characteristics of Villa Alemana. It is a proposal that we are going to take to the mayor (…) and thus leave behind old parks with species that consume a lot of water”.
