Why choose Wine?
The Mediterranean ecosystem, birthplace of global wine production, covers 5% of the planet and it only occurs in 5 regions of the world: the Mediterranean Basin, California and Baja California (the Californias), Australia, the Cape Region of South Africa and Central Chile. Chile’s Mediterranean region is located between the southern bank of Choapa River and the northern bank of the Biobío River. It has clearly marked seasons: cold and rainy winters, warm and dry summers. This creates ideal conditions for wildlife diversity; 23% of vascular plants are endemic, these species are unique and distinctive in Chilean forests and sclerophyllous vegetation.
Olga Barbosa ¿Por qué el vino?
This ecosystem and its biodiversity has deteriorated and it is threatened by urbanisation, agricultural and forestry development; additionally, it does not have significant protection in the government’s National Protected Area System (less than 1%). As a result, it has qualified as one of the 35 conservation regions of global importance called “biodiversity hotspots”. This deterioration, threat, low level of protection by the government and the uniqueness of its ecosystem, encourage the search for a strategic partner who would diversify Chile’s current conservation strategies. The wine industry met these criteria and became a strategic partner as it was in the process of changing its production practices to reduce its environmental impact in response to market requirements. This industry is also connected to the territory, it recognises the importance of physical and biological aspects, practices and local knowledge, biodiversity and the countryside where it is located. The industry recognises terroir as the basis of its wine production and it is also a key charismatic production activity of the local and global Mediterranean ecosystem.
In 2008, there was a door-to-door rapprochement where we presented an ecological science-based project to collaborate with wine producers. At first, it was difficult because people were already talking about climate change in Chile; at the time, it was something completely alien. At the time, however, Viña Cono Sur and Viñedos Emiliana believed in the project and collaborated with us.
Over time, we realised that we needed to move away from a scientific to a hybrid approach, where transfer, assessment, co-development of scientific questions and evidence-based decision making were the mainstays for this partnership with the wine industry

From that moment onwards, our work focused on raising awareness and taking ecological science knowledge to the companies we worked with. We developed training courses and workshops where the participation of all employees was essential.

Since then it has been continuous learning; progress has been made in the development of research and knowledge transfer; where ecology and the world of wine interact to solve mutual questions, converging and talking about our different knowledge and experience.

Five years after the project was launched, the vineyards, members of Vinos de Chile and VCCB, worked on creating a sustainability code that also incorporated a biodiversity conservation area; this was led by our programme. The data obtained confirmed and demonstrated to the research team that this production sector could be a great opportunity to protect Chile’s Mediterranean ecosystem.

These 10 years of collaboration between the wine industry and the Wine, Climate Change and Biodiversity programme has allowed agricultural practices to be incorporated and transformed, where the natural history of the Chilean Mediterranean has presented a new development model, transforming these production areas into a region where biodiversity and production coexist and are resilient to global change.

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