2023-09-27 08:00:00
Staff from the Nahuel Huapi National Park will join the national day of protest this Wednesday in support of the four park rangers accused in a case that originated following the death of two children due to the fall of a huge tree, in a campsite operated by the Curruhuinca Mapuche community, located in the Lanín National Park.
the staff will be concentrated in the Administration of the Nahuel Huapi National Park, located in the center of Bariloche, where they will give a symbolic hug to that institution. In addition, they called a press conference there at 10:30.
From the Nahuel Huapi National Park they said that the demonstration ands to “make visible the situation faced by the four workers” who will be tried “due to the natural phenomenon that caused two fatalities in the Lolen Complex in the Lanín National Park.” The protest has the support of ATE, UPCN and the Park Rangers Union, Sigunara.
The mayor of Nahuel Huapi Park, Horacio Paradella, reported that there will be minimum guards this Wednesday and that visitors will be able to take the scheduled excursions. He said the trails will be enabled. ““Everything remains open,” He explained even though there will be a day of protest.
He admitted that the case of the four accused park rangers “institutionally it is worrying” and he clarified that this concern “does not have to relativize the family’s pain.”
Background of the case
Park rangers Matthias Ivan Encina, Diego Luis Lucca, John Ignatius Jones and Maria Mercedes Hileman They are charged with negligent homicide aggravated by the number of victims and serious negligent injuries.along with failure to comply with the duties of a public official due to his alleged negligent conduct in not warning that there was a risky area at the Lolen campsite.
Over there, On the followingnoon of January 1, 2016, a Pellín oak tree, which had significant damage to its roots and branches, collapsed, causing the death of two children (aged 2 and 8) and seriously injuring the children’s father. the grandmother, who spent an followingnoon relaxing in that complex that was exploited by the Mapuche community. For this reason, there are also two members of that community prosecuted and charged in the case.
In the first instance, the accused had been dismissed and the Federal Court of Appeals of Roca confirmed that dismissal in September 2020. The prosecution and the complaints appealed that resolution and on July 14, 2021, the Federal Court of Criminal Cassation annulled the ruling of the Roca Court, removed the judges who had issued the ruling and ordered a new resolution to be made.
Therefore, on October 26, 2021, the Federal Court of Appeals of Roca, composed especially of judges Alejandro Silva and Simón Bracco, It admitted the appeals of the prosecution and the plaintiffs and prosecuted the four park rangers and the two members of the Mapuche community without preventive detention.
Resolution Basics
Silva and Bracco cited in their resolution the conclusions of the expertise that was carried out at the scene six days following the children’s deaths occurred. “This is an area at risk of falling trees,” they concluded. the forestry engineers and agronomist who worked on the expertise.
They pointed out that the risks must be evaluated and monitored according to the Guide for the Evaluation of Risk of Falling Trees in Recreational Areas of Patagonia approved by DNCAP Provision 16/2015.
They recalled that decree 56/2006 that approved the mission, scope of action, functions, attributions and obligations of said National Ranger Corps, establishes in its Annex I, chapter II, article 2: “The National Park Ranger Corps has the mission of controlling and monitoring protected areas according to Law 22,351.complementary decrees and regulations issued by the National Parks Administration.
This rule imposes on park rangers, as stated by the judges in the resolution, “detect environmental deterioration phenomena that occur within the areas under their custody, whatever the cause or agent that causes them and, when possible, adopt measures to mitigate their effects, in accordance with the provisions of Law 22,351, its complementary regulations and directives and instructions issued by the competent higher authority.”
They pointed out that the following actions were established for the Conservation Division of National Parks: “carry out environmental monitoring and monitoring of the flora and fauna of species of special value in the National Park, and of exoticas well as monitoring the conservation status of species of special value.”
They rule out that it is a fortuitous case
Bracco maintained in his vote that The defenses had tried to “get around the attribution of responsibility through the invoked configuration of a fortuitous event”. “That is to say, “They try to attribute the terrible event that happened to nature, trying to exclude any type of human responsibility.”
“However, and as I have been pointing out, it is not the fall of the Pellín Oak in itself that is criminally relevant, but in any case it It is a reflection of the causal link between the creation or increase of the risk above what is permitted (through the omission of the obligations under their responsibility by the accused), and the deaths and serious injuries that occurred. that, in short, are nothing other than the materialization of that one,” the judge clarified.
“So, beyond the fact that the fall of the tree is indeed attributable to nature and that, in principle, it is not possible to predict the moment in which it would occur, The truth is that it was foreseeable that it was a risky area (this is what the testimonies and expert report indicated in the previous opinion have stated),” Bracco warned.
He stated that it might be “determined what possible risks were implied by allowing tourists to access the place (fall of some of the tree specimens with the possible damage that might be caused) and how alternative behavior in accordance with the norm would have made it possible to notice all that and adopt the necessary measures.” necessary measures to avoid the result that occurred…”
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