Driving collective action to create catchments in balance
Explore the three-part Aconcagua documentary series on Vimeo to learn how collective action is helping restore water balance and biodiversity.
Learn about the impact of collective water stewardship and the future for Aconcagua.
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Explore how farmers, companies, and communities are working together in the valley.
Watch on Vimeo
The Aconcagua Valley is one of Chile’s most important agricultural regions, supplying high-quality avocados, citrus and other fruits to markets in the UK and EU. But since 2010, prolonged droughts, combined with unsustainable water extraction across agriculture and other sectors, have placed increasing pressure on the catchment’s water balance.
The Water, Agriculture, Values, and Ecosystems (WAVE) Aconcagua Partnership was created in response to this challenge. It brings together growers, importers, exporters, retailers, public institutions, and other local stakeholders around a shared goal: helping restore balance in the catchment.
The Partnership connects practical action on farms with collaboration across the supply chain and engagement with public institutions. Together, partners are working to improve water stewardship, advance regenerative agriculture, protect biodiversity, and strengthen the resilience of the valley’s agricultural sector.
The ambition is to help create a catchment where water is managed sustainably, ecosystems can thrive, and agriculture and local livelihoods remain resilient for the long term.
We take a holistic catchment level approach, bringing in solutions at the farm, supply chain and enabling environment levels to develop economically viable solutions, backed by shared responsibility, smarter incentives, and aligned investments across the supply chain. Through WAVE, we:
We collaborate with farmers to support the implementation of more sustainable practices
We collaborate with farmers to support the implementation of more sustainable practices
We partner with buyers and retailers to build a more conducive environment along the supply chain to invest in sustainability and water stewardship, and
We partner with buyers and retailers to build a more conducive environment along the supply chain to invest in sustainability and water stewardship, and
We work with governments and civil society actors to create a stronger enabling environment that facilitates enhanced water management.
We work with governments and civil society actors to create a stronger enabling environment that facilitates enhanced water management.
Water challenges in the Aconcagua Valley cannot be solved by individual farms or companies acting alone. While many actors are already taking steps to improve water efficiency and sustainability, several barriers limit the scale and long-term impact of these efforts.
Technical improvements at farm level are important, but they need to be supported by stronger market incentives, supply chain collaboration, and an enabling policy and governance environment.
Growers need the engagement of retailers, importers, exporters, and other supply chain actors to create the incentives, resources, and shared commitment required to invest in more sustainable practices.
Addressing water challenges at catchment level requires stronger coordination between growers, businesses, public institutions, water-user organisations, and other stakeholders.
There is still limited shared visibility of water use, production conditions, risks and progress across the catchment. Better and more consistent data is needed to identify priorities, support decision-making and track whether interventions are delivering results over time.
Water challenges in the Aconcagua Valley extend beyond individual farm boundaries. The Partnership connects action on farms with supply-chain collaboration and wider water governance, creating a pathway from better practices on individual farms to lasting change across the catchment.
We equip growers with the tools, data and practical plans needed to take action. This includes implementing the Partnership’s Regenerative Agriculture Guide and monitoring framework, developing tailored farm transition plans, and building a shared evidence base of effective practices.
We support growers in implementing effective water stewardship and regenerative agriculture practices, while aligning retailers, importers and exporters around shared priorities. By connecting farm-level needs with market actors, the Partnership can help mobilise the support, incentives and resources required to accelerate adoption.
The long-term goal is to translate coordinated action by growers and supply-chain partners into measurable improvements in catchment resilience. This includes contributing to more effective and inclusive water governance and helping move the Aconcagua Basin towards a more sustainable balance between water availability, agricultural production, communities and ecosystems.
We engage with the public sector and civil society actors to strengthen the enabling environment, pool resources, improve collaboration, and drive resource efficiencies.
Read the second edition of the WAVE Aconcagua Newsletter, featuring updates and highlights from the past two months across our workstreams. We're also excited to launch "Meet the Network," a new section spotlighting the members of our growing partnership.
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Read the first edition of the WAVE Aconcagua Newsletter series. Every two months, we will share updates from the project team as well as key milestones achieved. The newsletter will also highlight new partner members and provide basic information of upcoming meetings.
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Between 4 and 11 July, the WAVE Partnership held a series of in-person workshops and events in the Aconcagua Valley in Chile, kicking off its three-year strategy for bringing the catchment back into balance.
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