Ley Pompón — Chile's National Peatland Protection Law

Chile enacted Law 21.660 ("Ley Pompón") in March 2024 after nearly six years of legislative debate, removing peatlands from the mining code and banning peat extraction nationwide while regulating sustainable harvesting of live Sphagnum magellanicum moss, a globally traded horticultural product mostly exported to Southeast Asia. CONAF estimates the law affects roughly 3.2 million hectares of peatland (Los Ríos, Los Lagos, Aysén, Magallanes regions), though CR2 academic researchers put Patagonian peatland extent above 4 million hectares.

The law establishes harvest-plan and training-certification requirements rather than a blanket ban, grounded in documented moss regeneration rates of just 2.5-5 mm/year in Magallanes and about 4 mm/year in Aysén (a harvested 15 cm strand needs roughly 30-60 years to regrow).

Over 2019-2023, official Agricultural Service (SAG) records show 1,357 people nationally completed the required sustainability training, with 270 harvest plans submitted. An independent CIPER Chile investigation found industry lobbying progressively inflated employment claims from 3,000 people (2021) to more than 20,000 families (2023), none substantiated against SAG's own certification records.

The inflated lobbying claims likely contributed to the final law permitting moss harvest rather than the "complete protection" originally proposed in 2018. The episode is a rare, well-documented case of independent fact-checking holding environmental legislation accountable to real evidence rather than unverified economic claims.