DiCaprio against the Chilean power line that threatens a frog

Leonardo DiCaprio has asked the Chilean government to reconsider the electricity interconnection project between Chile and Argentina promoted by Enel. It is a 500-kilovolt high-voltage line which, the actor argues, threatens the survival of an amphibian species.

The Pehuenche spiny-chest frog numbers fewer than a thousand individuals, all concentrated in the area crossed by the route. DiCaprio recalled that the species is classified as critically endangered and lives nowhere else on the planet outside the Pehuenche valley. Protecting it, he argued, means protecting an ecosystem that matters for biodiversity, for freshwater resources and for the territory's capacity to withstand climate change.

Enel responded that it has always acted in accordance with the regulations in force and intends to continue cooperating with the competent authorities.

Two environmental goals in conflict

The case has a recurring structure. A cross-border electricity interconnection serves to integrate markets and distribute renewable output better: when a region has surplus wind or sun, the line allows that energy to be carried where it is needed instead of being wasted. It is infrastructure that most energy policy documents classify as an instrument of the transition.

At the same time a 500-kilovolt line requires pylons, service roads and cleared corridors, and in this particular case it crosses the only known habitat of a species. The conflict is therefore not between the environment and the economy, but between two environmental objectives that are rarely discussed together.

Opposition to the route does not come only from the international environmental movement. Deputy Jorge Guzmán, of the Evópoli party, described the impact in local terms, speaking of large high-voltage pylons set to cross a place that matters for tourism, for sport and for nature.

The question now concerns the alternatives. A route variant or a buried cable section increases costs and timescales, and the decision will turn on those two variables. Species with a range as narrow as the Pehuenche frog's offer no room for compensation: there is no other population elsewhere to fall back on if this one disappears.