An internal audit by the Ministry of the Environment, led by Francisca Toledo, ended up opening a complex front on one of the most relevant participatory processes in the implementation of the Biodiversity and Protected Areas Service (SBAP).
After several months of administrative review, the ministry concluded that the indigenous consultation process carried out during 2025 presents a series of irregularities that compromise the integrity of the administrative file and that, in the opinion of the current administration, prevent properly certifying how a mandatory stage established in Convention 169 of the International Labour Organization was developed and closed.
The conclusion was reflected in Exempt Resolution No. 04158, signed on July 27 by the Minister of the Environment, Francisca Toledo, through which a procedure is formally initiated to invalidate both the Agreement and Disagreement Minutes signed during the National Dialogue and the resolution that declared the indigenous consultation process concluded on March 10, 2026, just one day before the end of President Gabriel Boric's government.
The resolution constitutes the result of a review work initiated after the change of administration and also incorporated background information arising from the protection appeal filed by the Atacameña Community of Socaire before the Court of Appeals of Antofagasta, a legal action that precisely questioned the way in which the indigenous consultation concluded.
An audit that reconstructs the process
According to what Radio Bío Bío was able to establish based on the exempt resolution, the technical memo prepared by the ministry, and background information gathered from sources familiar with the development of the process, the observations do not point solely to the loss of a document.
The administrative investigation reconstructs the entire sequence that ended with the closure of the consultation and concludes that there were deficiencies in documentary traceability, actions without formal administrative support, and a file that never managed to be completed before the authority resolved to declare the procedure finished.
All of this occurs in an indigenous consultation that was a requirement to issue three fundamental regulations for the implementation of Law 21,600, which created the Biodiversity and Protected Areas Service: the Regulations of the National System of Protected Areas, the Regulations of Concessions and Permits, and the Regulations of Priority Sites.
A million-dollar national dialogue
The background information reviewed by this outlet shows that the complete indigenous consultation process meant an expense close to 1.2 billion pesos.
Only the so-called National Dialogue — held between December 18 and 20, 2025, in the Metropolitan Region — demanded more than 230 million pesos, an instance in which indigenous representatives from different regions were supposed to reach agreements on fifteen matters related to the future regulation of the SBAP.
But the current administration maintains that the economic cost did not end there.
The memo prepared by the Ministry indicates that during 2026, invoices corresponding to the process carried out the previous year had to be paid for an amount exceeding 300 million pesos, obligations that had remained pending payment and were transferred from the previous administration.
Sources familiar with the process maintain that the organization of the national dialogue was developed under tight timelines and under coordination based directly in the office of the then Deputy Minister of the Environment, Maximiliano Proaño, a situation that — they affirm — altered the usual structure through which the ministry develops this type of indigenous consultation. That background information, however, does not appear expressly contained in the exempt resolution, so it should be attributed solely to sources familiar with the process.
The document that disappeared
The main finding of the audit relates to the Agreement and Disagreement Minutes.
The administrative resolution states that, once the National Dialogue concluded, during the early morning of December 21, 2025, indigenous representatives, the then Minister Maisa Rojas, and the then Deputy Minister Maximiliano Proaño signed the document that was supposed to officially record the agreements reached.
However, the original list of signatures never reached the administrative file. The resolution expressly states that said list "was not delivered by the ministerial office to the activity coordinator at the end of the day, resulting in its loss."
That document was precisely the support that certified which indigenous representatives approved the minutes and which did not.
The reconstruction of signatures
Faced with the loss of the document, during January 2026 a process began aimed at reconstructing the signatures. But the investigation itself concluded that said procedure was never formalized.
The resolution states that there is no record of administrative acts or official instructions ordering the start of the reconstruction of the lost list. Despite this, the ministerial office informally requested the Regional Ministerial Secretariats to contact the indigenous representatives again to ask them to sign the minutes once more.
The result was far from reconstructing the file. Of the 101 representatives who attended the final day of the dialogue, only 53 signatures were recovered, of which only 50 actually corresponded to people present that day. In other words, 51 representatives never signed the document again.
Communities that were never located
The resolution even details what happened to those who did not sign. Five representatives were never contacted. Twenty-four did not respond to the efforts made by regional authorities.
Twelve verbally stated that they would not sign again, and seven sent letters expressing the same decision. Another three sent emails expressing their approval of the content of the minutes.
Finally, the ministry itself concluded that regarding 29 representatives there is no background information that allows establishing whether they approved or rejected the Agreement and Disagreement Minutes, a situation that, according to the resolution, directly breaches the obligations established in the Indigenous Consultation Regulations.
The closure still occurred
Despite that entire scenario, the Ministry of the Environment issued on March 10, 2026, that is, one day before handing over power to the government of José Antonio Kast, the resolution that declared the indigenous consultation process concluded.
The current administration maintains that that decision was adopted when the file still presented relevant inconsistencies and without all the background information required by the regulations existing.
Therefore, the resolution concludes that the Agreement and Disagreement Minutes were issued "without complying with the essential requirements" provided for in the Indigenous Consultation Regulations and adds that those defects extend to the resolution that declared the process closed.
What comes now
Exempt Resolution No. 04158 does not immediately invalidate the administrative acts.
What it does is formally initiate that procedure, in accordance with Article 53 of Law 19,880, summoning representatives of indigenous communities and all those who could be affected to participate in public hearings — in-person and remote — during September and submit observations before the Ministry adopts a final decision.
Source:BiobioChile
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