One attendee, one tree: Puerto de Ideas Biobío Festival brings an innovative environmental proposal

CMPC is sponsoring a festival that will take place between August 22nd and 28th, and will donate one native tree for each person who attends the event. The trees will be planted in the Maule, Biobío and La Araucanía regions of Chile in 2023.

The 2022 Puerto de Ideas Biobío cultural festival will host 43 guests from different parts of the world with 27 activities spread over one week. The event will be held in the region for the first time in addition to the ones that took place in Valparaíso and Antofagasta in 2011 and 2014, respectively.

The festival will give a special emphasis to addressing issues around protecting nature, the oceans, and the challenges we face as humanity. Various workshops will be held as well as talks with distinguished international guests. They include Rashid Sumaila, a Nigerian-Canadian professor of ocean economics at the University of British Columbia and specialist in bio-economy, and Diego Golombek, an Argentine biologist, scientific communicator, and academic at the National University of Quilmes, and many others.

At the festival launch, the CMPC company, as one of the main sponsors of the activity, announced a new initiative: for each person who attends the event, the paper company will donate a native tree to be planted in 2023 in the districts of Empedrado, Constitución, Los Angeles and Temuco.

“We are happy to participate in this wonderful initiative and hope that a great number of people can attend so we can plant the largest number of trees possible. The specific species that we’ll donate are Ruil [Southern Beech], Hualo, Quillay [Soapbark] and Roble [Patagonian Oak]. We invite everyone to attend the festival so that they can also help care for the environment,” said Didier Cares, CMPC Head of Corporate Affairs.

President of the Puerto de Ideas Foundation Chantal Signorio said, “We are very pleased with our alliance with CMPC. Planting a tree for each Puerto de Ideas Biobío Festival attendee symbolizes the essence of the festival. That means that in addition to having the chance to engage in dialogue and participate in fascinating activities that ask us to reflect on our relationship with nature, we are also contributing through a concrete action by attending a Festival that will most certainly represent a great celebration of knowledge in Concepción and Talcahuano.”

The Puerto de Ideas Festival will be held from August 22nd through 28th in several locations in Concepción and Talcahuano. In addition, the first Festival de Cine del Mar [Sea Film Festival] in Chile will be held at the Dante Theater with a range of activities also put on at primary and secondary schools in the region.

Head of the Social and Human Development Division of the Biobío Regional Government Simón Acuña said the Puerto de Ideas, “Invites us to open up and expand horizons of citizen participation and disseminate information in a space that we hope will be a democratic, open, and inclusive one that reaches many people in the region. We want this opportunity for reflection and engagement to touch everyone in the region.”

The rector of the University of Concepción, Carlos Saavedra said, “The diversity of activities and themes is tremendously broad and varied. We hope that the community will enjoy reflecting on the content, getting up-to-date in terms of new information, and especially regarding the challenges that humanity has with long-term survival, environmental challenges, and our relationship with the oceans in particular.”

Information on the full schedule and ticket sales (2,000) is available on the puertodeideas.cl website.