Foreword

The principal aim of the OECD Environmental Performance Review programme is to help member and selected partner countries improve their individual and collective performance in environmental management by:

  • helping individual governments assess progress in achieving their environmental goals;

  • promoting continuous policy dialogue and peer learning; and

  • stimulating greater accountability from governments towards each other and public opinion.

This report reviews Chile’s environmental performance since the first review in 2005. Progress in achieving domestic objectives and international commitments provides the basis for assessing the country’s environmental performance. Such objectives and commitments may be broad aims, qualitative goals or quantitative targets. A distinction is made between intentions, actions and results. Assessment of environmental performance is also placed within the context of Chile’s historical environmental record, present state of the environment, physical endowment in natural resources, economic conditions and demographic trends.

The OECD is indebted to the government of Chile for its co-operation in providing information; for the organisation of the review mission to Santiago, the municipality of Santo Domingo, the El Yali National Reserve and Emiliana Organic Vineyards (6-11 July 2015); and for facilitating contacts both inside and outside government institutions.

Thanks are also due to the representatives of the two examining countries, Kelly Torck (Canada) and Roger Lincoln (New Zealand).

This review was co-ordinated by the OECD and benefited from the co-operation with the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). The authors of this report were Nils Axel Braathen, Ivana Capozza, Britta Labuhn, Eugene Mazur and Michael Mullan from the OECD Environment Directorate, and Rachel Samson of Carist Consulting. Ivana Capozza co-ordinated the review and Nathalie Girouard provided oversight and guidance. Carla Bertuzzi provided statistical support; Annette Hardcastle provided editorial and administrative support; and Mark Foss copy-edited the report. Preparation of this report also benefited from inputs from Mauricio Pereira from ECLAC, Gérard Bonnis from the OECD Environment Directorate, Gerado Aragon Castaño and Ada Ignaciuk from the OECD Trade and Agriculture Directorate, and Michelle Harding from the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, as well as from comments provided by members of the OECD Secretariat.

The OECD Working Party on Environmental Performance discussed the draft Environmental Performance Review of Chile at its meeting on 10 March 2016 in Paris, and approved the Assessment and Recommendations.