“Human beings feel superior to the space where they go, but for us Mapuche, I belong to the earth, the earth doesn’t belong to me.”

In the worldview of the Mapuche, Chile’s largest Indigenous group and more than 10 per cent of its population, a pristine river is home to a spiritual force to revere, not a natural resource to exploit.

That has led many Mapuche across Chile’s water-rich south to fight hydro-electric plants and other projects they see as desecrating nature and depriving Indigenous communities of essential energies that keep them from getting sick.

Source: Chile’s Mapuche Indigenous community’s ongoing fight against hydro-electric plants for sacred rivers – ABC News