Six years after mass-scale street protests, Chileans see the movement with a more critical eye. And Costa Rica is trying to reverse centuries of cattle ranching deforestation.
CHILE
Ahead of a new vote, Chile rethinks its historic 2019 protests
Six years ago this month, Chile experienced one of its most transformative events in recent history, as a protest originating with students who jumped turnstiles against a subway fare hike escalated into months-long nationwide rallies with millions in attendance.
Known in Spanish as the Estallido Social (“social explosion”), the protests’ mottos and slogans questioned Chile’s post-dictatorship economic order, calling for more equality, stronger health and education services, larger pensions and broad-scale institutional reforms.
More than 70% of Chileans supported the rallies at the time, and 78% of voters backed a referendum to launch a constitutional reform process inspired by the protests, which called to rewrite Chile’s constitution from scratch — as parts of it remained intact from the years of Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship.
But views have changed significantly since then. Chile’s new constitutional draft was rejected, and only 49% of Chileans still think the protests were needed to raise awareness, while 60% believe they marked the start of a period of decline, according to a recent Cadem poll. 
For Chileans, the 2019 protests represent …
Back in 2019, a mere 27% of respondents said police repression was a proportional response to rioting protesters, against 53% now. More than half of Chileans currently think that violence began with “organized groups” first and foremost, and only 18% blame them on the country’s armed forces.
A separate study by Chile’s Catholic University shows that trust in the armed forces, which were under severe scrutiny due to hundreds of cases of police abuse during the protests, rose from 17% in 2021 to 39% today. According to the same poll, more Chileans (29%) now see themselves as right-wing, compared to 22% on the left and a 38% centrist majority.
👉 Why it matters. Polls reflecting on the protests came just one month before Chile’s presidential election, in which multiple right-wing candidates will be vying to replace the progressive Gabriel Boric in the country’s top job. Prediction markets currently see José Antonio Kast as the favorite, followed by Johannes Keiser, both of whom have been described as far-right, though they reject the label.
The reframing of the protests is also evident in the much-improved image of then-President Sebastián Piñera, who was seen as the villain of the story in 2019, with approval ratings below 20%. One year after his tragic 2024 death, Piñera was viewed positively by 69% of Chileans, while 41% now see the events of 2019 as a “coup attempt” against him.
Two facts have been decisive in this shift in public opinion: Boric’s presidency — which only 34% of Chileans approve of — and the constitutional reform proposal drafted by a left-dominated assembly in 2022, which was endorsed by the government but rejected by nearly two-thirds of the electorate.
Boric and the assembly were criticized for ignoring topics that Chileans increasingly see as a priority, including crime and public order. Instead of this, his government was seen as stoking the fires of indigenous conflicts in the south and opening the door to unchecked migration in the north, forcing Boric into a centrist pivot during his last years in office.
Speaking during the anniversary of the protests, presidential hopeful Kast said that “those who rule Chile today were in the streets in 2019, condoning violence, celebrating chaos and pushing Chile into the abyss. When their term is over, I hope they don’t go back to the streets to destroy what they didn’t know how to govern.”
But while Kast is currently the favorite, the rise of the right is already provoking some backlash. Rejection for the 2019 protests peaked in 2024, and many Chileans offered a more nuanced take this year, criticizing violence but also arguing that they expressed genuine social discontent — a vision that the right, which has praised economic growth while downplaying other social concerns, often struggles to accept.
ENVIRONMENT
Costa Ricans seek to reconvert pastures into forest
Renowned for having one of the strongest green agendas in the region, Costa Rica is now undertaking multiple environmental projects to reverse centuries of damage caused by the expansion of cattle ranching, a practice central to Latin America’s economy since its early colonial days.
Efforts to reverse the process have focused on Costa Rica’s northwestern province of Guanacaste. This extensive but sparsely populated region has been at the heart of livestock farming, threatening a biodiverse parkland which includes tropical forests, waterfalls and protected native fauna.
Experts in Guanacaste have worked to restore large swathes of degraded pastures back into woodlands. While livestock raising will not be eradicated from the area due to its crucial economic contribution, a middle ground is being sought, with ranchers ceding part of their property for rewilding and being compensated through carbon credits.
👉 Why it matters. Cattle ranching as an industry has come in for severe criticism for its aggressive land-clearing practices. Research points to the sector as responsible for one-quarter of global carbon emissions and 70% of Latin American deforestation. The region’s newly independent nations pushed to expand pasturelands since the 1800s, but deforestation eventually led to significant soil erosion, biodiversity loss and threats to local water availability — a problem that may be further exacerbated in times of climate change.
While Costa Rica’s livestock population is one of the smallest in Latin America (around 2.2 million cattleheads), its program, if successful, could serve as a blueprint for agricultural powerhouses in the region, such as Brazil (238 million cattleheads) or Argentina (54 million).
A notable case is that of forest engineer Emel Rodríguez, who is leading what he calls “a forest cover revolution” by replanting trees on livestock farms and creating new ecological corridors that allow species to move safely across biomes. According to his estimates, a total of 207,000 hectares in Guanacaste are currently undergoing forest regeneration.
Rodríguez is personally working on the reforestation of 3,000 hectares that should be restored by 2030, reconnecting them to existing forest fragments and promoting the regeneration of natural water sources. In exchange for losing part of their productive land, ranchers receive assistance for rational pasture management and are paid for their help in cutting carbon emissions.
Other initiatives are directly run by the state. Costa Rica’s Electricity Institute (ICE) recovered 978 hectares of former cattle-farming areas, which the firm purchased to build geothermal fields. Their plan was part of a broader program that replanted 400,000 trees in the zone, allowing over 400 local species to re-emerge in suitable habitats.
The return of these native species is creating a positive feedback loop thanks to their role as seed dispersers and the reactivation of natural food chains.
The projects are coming to life at an interesting political moment in Costa Rica, given that President Rodrigo Chaves has threatened to move the country away from its traditional environmental stances. While the country remains a powerhouse when it comes to renewable energy, Chaves has controversially stepped out from the Escazú climate agreement and revamped the use of fossil fuels for power generation.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Outside of Argentina and Paraguay, which voted against a UN resolution calling for an end to Cuba’s embargo this week, which other South American country also sided with the US in similar declarations?
- Colombia, under right-wing President Álvaro Uribe, in 2008
- Chile, under right-wing President Sebastián Piñera, in 2013
- Brazil, under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, in 2019
- Ecuador, under right-wing President Daniel Noboa, in 2024
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