UN General Assembly
2018

No nation is immune to that threat, but Chile is especially vulnerable. My country is a veritable observatory and natural laboratory, as it contains very diverse land, maritime, coastal and glacial ecosystems, among many others, as well as unique island ecosystems that are home to more than 30,000 species of plants, animals, fungi and bacteria. In addition, Chile is geographically unique because of its natural barriers, the Andes range to the east, the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Atacama desert to the north and the Antarctic to the south, which means that we are home to species found nowhere else in the world. For example, almost 90 per cent of fish species — the highest percentage in the world — on Robinson Crusoe Island in the Juan Fernández archipelago are endemic; in other words, they are unique to that environment.