Brief History and Location
The Renaico River originates in the foothills known as the Cordillera de Pemehue, just to the west of the Andes. It is approximately 130 km long, and serves as the border between two regions of Chile: the Araucanía and the Biobío. It then flows into the Vergara River. The Renaico and its tributaries cross the towns of Mulchén and Nacimiento, in the Biobío Region, and then the towns of Collipulli, Angol, and Renaico, in the Araucanía Region.
The Renaico River is located in Mapuche territory, which is also known as Wallmapu. This land was recognized as the sovereign, independent property of the Mapuche people by the Spanish crown in 1641 [1], after the Mapuche fought against colonization for one hundred years.
In the 19th century, the Republic of Chile carried out a military occupation [2] of Wallmapu, which ended with the annexation of Mapuche territory to the Chilean state. During this period, interest arose in planting non-native trees in Chilean soil, “to stop erosion and provide urban centers and their industrial activity with wood and fuel” [3]. This erosion was due to the extensive deforestation of native tree species that had been taking place since the Spanish colonial period. Between the 16th and the 19th centuries, forests were burned “in order to clear lands for agriculture and the grazing of domestic animals” [4]. Extensive areas of forest were cut down to build homes in urban centers and fuel the country’s burgeoning mining industry. At the turn of the 20th century, the first plantations of eucalyptus and pine trees were established in Chile. Once the logging company known as Sociedad Forestal Mininco was founded, in the Biobío Region in 1947, the area around the Renaico River basin entered an era of increased extractivism.
Currently, the logging industry exists in Chile from the Maule Region all the way south to the Los Lagos Region.
However, many people are replanting native tree species. Meanwhile, the Mapuche population has been fighting for the restitution of its native land—and against violent police repression by different governments of Chile—since the restoration of the country’s democracy in 1990.
On the banks of the Renaico River, in the Collipulli area, there are still a number of Mapuche communities, despite the fact that many have migrated to the cities—with the dissolution of the social fabric that this migration often entails.
More information, sources, and citations:
(2) The occupation of Araucanía
(3) See Pablo Camus, Sergio A. Castro & Fabián Jaksic, Historia y política de la gestión forestal en Chile a la luz del pino insigne (Pinus radiata). Invasiones biológicas en Chile: Causas globales e impactos locales, 2014
(4) See Juan Armesto, Carolina Villagrán, & Claudio Donoso, Desde la era glacial a la industrial: La historia del bosque templado chileno, 1994, and Miguel Escalona Ulloa & Jonathan R. Barton, ‘Oro verde’: la invención del paisaje forestal en Wallmapu/Araucanía, sur de Chile, 2021.