KAYAKIMÜN
Kayaking to Protect the Biological and Cultural Diversity of Chile’s Biobío River Basin
Kayakimün is a youth program and movement to strengthen and empower the sacred bond between the people and the river.
Chile’s Biobío River Basin is a caleidoscope of biological and cultural diversity that thrums throughout the river basin. For generations, the Mapuche-Pehuenche people have stewarded the basin, living in community-oriented reciprocity with the land and water.
Today, however, the community is facing many threats.
Since the 1990s three dams have been constructed along the length of the Biobío River despite national outcry and indigenous opposition. These structures altered its course and irrevocably damaged the basin’s sensitive ecosystems. The reservoirs that once were home to so much life now lay empty and desolate beneath the surface. The Mapuche-Pehuenche people have been forced to change their ways and, to a degree, separate from the river. Yet they still fight as a fourth and fifth dam threaten to be built in the basin.
Kayakimün was born from the organization Malen Leubü, an all-women, all-Mapuche-Pehuenche rafting team founded and run by the director of Ríos to Rivers Chile, Fernanda Purrán. The project will train Mapuche-Pehuenche women and youth in whitewater rafting skills and create a platform where their ancestral wisdom about the environment can be shared. In a unique opportunity to combine conservation and Indigenous empowerment with watersports, biodiversity and a traditional way of life will be showcased and protected.
Please consider supporting the Kayakimün program
Program Launch
In February of 2023, Kayakimün launched its first two-week program on the Biobío River in Chile. This program provided training in whitewater kayaking and river stewardship and advocacy for 16 Mapuche-Pehuenche youth. The program aims to operate annual 2-3 week programs in addition to weekend kayaking clinics and kayak roll training sessions throughout the year.
Kayakimün is a project of
With generous support from
While communities have historically depended on rivers for food, water, sustenance, navigation, and cultural value, kayaking allows us to connect to the river in an entirely new way that is linked purely to joy and adventure. When we fall in love with something, we naturally strive to protect it. When youths feel strong and competent in an activity such as kayaking, their confidence and belief in themselves grow. Those two factors combine and yield a powerful synergy in this program that produces strong and thoughtful leaders and local advocates.
Kayakimün is an exciting initiative to enable youths who are already connected and passionate about the river to connect in a new way with its currents and to learn to raise their voices and share their message with the world.
“This project will defend the rich bio and cultural diversity of Chile’s Biobio River Basin by developing local women and Indigenous youth in communities most affected by large hydro projects to become confident leaders navigating their ancestral waterways and as global advocates to defend the importance of free-flowing rivers.”
—Fernanda Castro Purrán, Mapuche-Pehuenche Director of Malen Leubü and Ríos to Rivers in Chile
