ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Policy and Governance
This article is part of the Research TopicLearning and Identity in Rural Communities Amid Sustainable Energy Transitions: Global Perspectives on Education and Place-Based IdentityView all articles
Justice and Risk Perception in Chile's Wind Energy Expansion
Provisionally accepted
Minerva Cordoves-Sánchez1*
Humberto Aponte2
Arturo Vallejos-Romero3*
Felipe Sáez Ardura1
César Cisternas4- 1Vice-Rectorate for Research and Postgraduate Studies, Universidad de La Frontera, Temuco, Chile
- 2Laboratory of Soil Microbial Ecology and Biogeochemistry, Institute of Agri-food, Animal and Environmental Sciences (ICA3). Universidad de O’Higgins,, San Fernando, Chile
- 3Department of Social Science, Universidad de La Frontera, Temuco, Chile
- 4Doctoral Program in Social Science, Scientific and Technological Center in Social Sciences and Humanities, Universidad de La Frontera, Temuco, Chile
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The deployment of renewable energy infrastructures has intensified across Latin America as countries pursue decarbonization goals; however, these transformations often reproduce existing territorial inequalities, especially in rural areas that have been historically affected by extractive industries. In many rural areas, the expansion of wind energy has generated significant socio-environmental tensions linked to landscape transformation, informational asymmetries, and procedural deficits. This study evaluates the interaction between energy development and the ecosystem multifunctionality of rural landscapes, focusing on how local actors perceive and interpret socio-environmental risks, changes in Ecosystem Services, and dimensions of environmental justice. A constructivist framework was performed in addition to qualitative fieldwork in five administrative localities to connect conceptual trends with empirical narratives. Results show that wind energy projects have disrupted both physical and symbolic ecological landscape functions, revealing perceived risk functions associated with procedural injustice and an expression of territorial inequality. Risk perception emerged as a socially constructed and historically rooted phenomenon, shaped by lack of trust, uneven information access, and symbolic disconnection. The findings call for place-based, justice-oriented energy planning approaches that integrate community knowledge, territorial heterogeneity, and the affective dimensions of landscape.
Keywords: ecosystem services, energy transition, environmental justice, Landscape multifunctionality, windenergy
Received: 09 Dec 2025; Accepted: 16 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Cordoves-Sánchez, Aponte, Vallejos-Romero, Sáez Ardura and Cisternas. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Minerva Cordoves-Sánchez
Arturo Vallejos-Romero
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