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Fracking is a dirty and dangerous technique to extract oil and gas. It is banned in many countries, such as Uruguay, France, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Ireland and Denmark.¹⁴⁷⁰¹ Fracking can cause earthquakes, contaminate ground and surface water and poison humans. Fossil fuel companies pump pressurized water, toxic chemicals and sand into the underground rock to release oil and gas. Together with the desired fossil fuels, they bring some of the toxic mixture up to the surface again. This waste contains heavy metals and radioactive liquids. In Vaca Muerta, the companies are illegally dumping this hazardous brew into unprotected open holes.¹⁴⁷⁰³ This oily waste is piling up only a few hundred meters away from people’s homes.¹⁴⁷⁰⁵

Fracking operations in Vaca Muerta make people ill. Fracking chemicals are poisoning people’s drinking water, farmland and harvest. People are suffocating from the persistent smell of oil and gas in the air. It sticks to their noses and dries up their throats. They are suffering chronic health issues such as cancer, asthma and skin diseases.¹⁴⁷⁰⁷ At the same time, fracking causes earthquakes that rattle and crack people’s houses. The people live in constant fear of the next earthquake. Every earthquake threatens to destroy their homes, belongings and health. Before the oil and gas companies started their fracking activities, the people of Vaca Muerta could walk on stable ground. This is no longer the case.¹⁴⁷⁰⁹ In the course of only 3 weeks in April and May 2022, 35 earthquakes hit the region.¹⁴⁷¹¹

The Vaca Muerta megaproject brings Northern Patagonian cities close to collapse. Masses of workers are moving to the area. Cities like Añelo are growing chaotically. Within the last decade, its population has tripled.¹⁴⁷¹³ Housing and food prices are exploding in Vaca Muerta’s nearby cities.¹⁴⁷¹⁵ Even the oil and gas workers are struggling to pay their bills by now. In February 2022, the union representing 24,000 workers went on strike to demand higher wages.¹⁴⁷¹⁷ More and more people have to move into the poor slums on the outskirts of cities. The health and school systems are completely overburdened. Teachers and doctors have to commute from neighboring towns because they cannot afford the rent.¹⁴⁷¹⁹

The indigenous Mapuche people are suffering most from the dirty megaproject. They have been living in Northern Patagonia for centuries. Now, fossil fuel companies are drilling wells on the Mapuche’s traditional land without their consent.¹⁴⁷²¹ They are invading the indigenous community’s homeland with wells, pipelines, heavy machinery, access roads and truck traffic.^1472314725

But the Mapuche people are fighting back. First, in 2014, they blocked roads to drilling sites for 2 weeks, then for 48 days and then again for 48 days.¹⁴⁷²⁵ With their bodies, they brought Vaca Muerta’s fracking wells to a halt. Together with the NGO FARN and local citizens, the Wirkaleo Mapuche community is suing the province Neuquén in Northern Patagonia and the National State. The case has reached Argentina’ supreme court, which remains silent.¹⁴⁷²⁷ The Wirkaleo Mapuche want the province to halt all fracking activities until it can guarantee that fracking no longer causes earthquakes in the region.¹⁴⁷²⁹

The Mapuche are not alone with their resistance. More and more people are coming together in grassroots initiatives across Northern Patagonia. The Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, a local Catholic Bishop, farmers, doctors, teachers and politicians are speaking up against the destruction of the region. Even the United Nations has urged Argentina to stop the gigantic fracking project.¹⁴⁷³¹

Fossil fuel companies like BP, Petrobras, Equinor, Sinopec and Shell have endless expansion plans. Financial institutions need to stop them now, before they turn Northern Patagonia into a completely unlivable and poisonous desert.¹⁴⁷³³