Environmental impact
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Environment: respect the lands
As it was received in Africa, the Dakar is now invited to South America. As responsible as enthusiastic, the competitors have, like the organisers, the will to be worthy of this gesture. Their first duty, in this regard, will be to respect the lands. Argentina and Chile, who offer their most beautiful landscapes to the rally participants and its large number of television viewers, will be thanked for their trust.
Invited to South America, the organisers of the Dakar work with a permanent will to respect the places that are confided. In order to insure optimal conditions in terms of the environment, the teams of the rally have set up a network of local partners able to orientate their choices, notably for the elaboration of the course.
Added to their stature of Continent-States,Argentina and Chile distinguish themselves by the extreme variety of the fauna and flora that have developed there. The strong contrasts of population diversity, between totally desert areas and others strongly urbanised, leaves vast zones preserved from sources of the most harmful pollution. In both countries, numerous national parks are the object of strict regulation concerning the traffic conditions that apply.
A precise cartography transmitted by the administration of national parks
During the elaboration of the course, the basic rule was to go around these national parks. The precise examination of the considered itinerary in cooperation with the Ministry for Environment, then allows imagining several cuts. The administrations of the national parks in Argentina and the CONAMA in Chile are the ones that transmit for each stage planned a precise cartography of the “forbidden” zones for the Dakar, based on the places where animal species live and protected flora grows.
The orders given out by the services that are in charge of environmental questions are linked with the recommendations expressed by the representatives of the Indian communities during contacts established ever since the first phase of the rally preparation. All this information gathered together allows the sporting teams to design a respectful course on the welcoming sites. Once finalised, the map will be given to the Argentinean and Chilean authorities for final validation.
On the Dakar, each day a community of more than 2000 people travel from town to town. The logistic challenge that consists of feeding, installation and providing, among other things, electricity, begins at the moment of their departure. The organisers know the importance of keeping these sites clean. It is thus a work of collecting waste that begins at the moment when the competitors head into action. Consequently, the Dakar calls upon the local service providers to take care of the transporting the waste to the garbage sites that will assure disposal in the best conditions.
From the beginning, the Dakar has been very careful when preparing the race route to preserve certain “fragile” sites. To ensure route layout coherence, close collaboration was necessary between the rally teams and the services of the Argentine and Chilean bodies in charge of environmental questions.
From the first route propositions to the final, detailed layout of the different steps, the organizers of the Dakar have insisted on regular meetings with the associations representing the Indian populations, the institutes watching over the preservation of archeological sites and the governmental agencies responsible for the environment, such as CONAMA in Chile. On the different road-books proposed, these bodies were able to note observations and provide corrections. At the end of this preliminary work phase, CONAMA officially validated the route for the Dakar 2009 under conditions of collaboration that had never before been tested in organizing a rally. The dialog that was begun should continue even beyond the month of January, since CONAMA plans to send agents to verify the status of sites on the Chilean part of the route after the end of the race.
In order to assert its commitment to an eco-responsible attitude, A.S.O.has decided to add an “eco-contribution” to the registration fees of competitors: 50 euros for bikes and quads, 100 euros for cars and 150 euros for trucks. The sums thus collected will be donated to one or several organisations working for the protection of the environment.
