ATACAMA RALLY CONTINUES ITS PATH TO SUSTAINABILITY

Since its first incursion in 2019, the Atacama Rally organization decided for second year to carry forward the largest sustainability program that the International Motorcycling Federation, (FIM) has developed with the help of its environmental commission.

For second year, the program known internationally as “KISS” (Keep it Shiny & Sustainable) will be integrated in the activities of the 2021 Atacama Rally; eighth and ninth round of the FIM World Cup and the event “Atacama Rally International” to be held from August 29 to September 4 in the Atacama Region, Chile.

Under this engagement, the second edition of the “KiSS Atacama” will be merged with the programme “I look after the desert” of Atacama Rally that has been developed over the last five years. Its main objective is to clean the desert of the waste that human beings leave and generate awareness and education in the community.
 
For Gerardo Fontaine, the General Director of the Atacama Rally, the incorporation of the FIM KiSS programme is an important step in the evolution of Cross-Country Rally and allows through a sports tourism event the opportunity to actively work for the benefit of conservation and sustainability in the places where these events take place.

“Developing the KISS program again in the Atacama Rally is a challenge that we never wanted to put aside. The experience lived in the first KISS, in 2019, gave us the responsibility to continue in our mission to take care of the desert and in a or another to communicate it to the world through the FIM environmental commission. Hopefully this will serve as an example to the other organizations of the Cross-Country Rally world championship and the Baja World Cups since we are the most responsible in caring for the environment because our activity takes place on natural terrain and not on a circuit. For me this is a commitment that everyone should assume in favor of sustainability and world conservation”.

 Bottles, cartons, plastics, washing machines, televisions, among many other things are those that human beings dispose of without conscience in the desert. These are scattered for years and the wind is responsible for propagating them to the remotest places of the Atacama Desert. Under the KiSS programme, Atacama Rally will work to eliminate more than two tons of refuge this year and will initiate a conservation programme in a key location at the interior of the Atacama Desert

An important partner to help develop KiSS Atacama is the Motorcycling Federation of Chile – FMC, who together with the organizers of the Atacama Rally will carry out this ambitious programme for the sustainability and conservation of the Atacama Desert.
 
“The real problem of refuge in the desert as in many other places in our country, is that there are people willing to continue throwing waste and creating illegal dumps. This is especially serious and visible in the desert and the important thing about this programme is that it attacks the root of the problem by delivering, in addition to the commitment of refuge removal, education to the people so that they stop continuing to damage our environment. ” José Tomás Díaz, President of the FMC commented.

Adding her own comments, the Director of the FIM´s International Sustainability Commission Kattia Juarez said: “We are very proud to present the KiSS programme in such an important and traditional event in a very sensitive region. Chile is one of the strictest countries in the continent regarding environmental laws and I think that events like this must show that we can go forward in sustainable organization.

2021 Atacama Rally, will be part of the eighth and ninth round of the FIM Bajas World Cup and together will develop the Atacama Rally International, a motor sporting event that takes place exclusively in the Atacama Desert. Since 2015, it has been permanently part of the world circuit, becoming the most important Cross-Country Rally in America.