Coastal commons in southern Chile: current state, networks, and community cares, such as local contributions to climate justice

Coastal territories from central-southern Chile show high climate vulnerability mainly caused by the fragility of its ecosystem conditions, dispossession, and degradation that affect its main commons. In this context, some communities develop care strategies rooted in traditional knowledge and collective experiences. This document exposes an analysis of the commons to face climate change and its strategies of care, understood within the framework of climate justice. An interdisciplinary analysis of the current state of the commons is developed, based on community evaluation criteria and biophysical parameters. This was done through a transdisciplinary collaborative research process including interviews, analysis workshops, and social cartography in three territories of central-southern Chile in 2022. The results show that it is not possible to talk about isolated common goods; instead, we should consider heterogeneous networks of commons, which extend from marine networks to networks of the Coastal Range, each as a socio-natural system resignified by the communities because of its economical, socioecological, and patrimonial importance. These networks face high climate vulnerability due to conditions of appropriation, overexploitation, and degradation, which worsen due to the friction between the property systems and governances in which they are situated. Communities take care of their commons using different care strategies, which contribute to cocreate scenarios of climate justice that strengthen the exercise of territorial human rights. This document concludes by stating the importance of considering the territorial conditions and the care of the commons as a field of local answers and opportunities to strengthen plural governance processes in coastal territories with strong climate vulnerability.