While
electronic music
is gaining more and more followers in the country with stadiums at capacity, where enthusiastic crowds offer the best setting for renowned international artists, a dissonant note against these massive shows is heard in the northern end of the City.
The Assembly in Defense of the
Costanera Norte Ecological Reserve,
whose 23 hectares extend within the limits of Ciudad Universitaria, demands the
cessation of the mega events
that are organized on the sports field of that large riverside space of the UBA, warning that The sound and light impact of the shows
“alters and harms the fauna because it changes their sleep and reproduction cycle. Plus, sounds disorient them.”
Jorgelina Bueno, a student of Biological Sciences at the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences, adds a collateral effect to the damage reported by the group made up of students, teachers, scholarship holders and employees. “Due to the strong vibrations,
the measurement equipment in the laboratories is decalibrated.
This is especially noticeable in glass devices, which are very expensive and complicated to recalibrate,” says the Assembly member.
The Ecological Reserve - managed jointly by the General Directorate of Green Spaces of the Buenos Aires Government and the Infrastructure Planning Secretariat, dependent on the Rectorate of the UBA - remains
closed since the great storms at the beginning of the year
. However, more than once, students and teachers came face to face with yararás and other specimens that wandered in the middle of the buildings in the educational area.
“Animals are very sensitive and the impact of big shows disorients them. For months we have been complaining to the Rectorate about the reopening of the public walk and the end of the recitals. We wanted to participate in a session of the
Superior Council, but
they did not receive us. We even received verbal abuse from police personnel. Nor did they communicate with us from the City Government. The place is also key for the
field work and research of the Faculty,”
Bueno emphasizes.
Bueno's activism - along with 200 other people - in favor of the preservation of the protected area began in the summer of 2023, when the Buenos Aires authorities announced the start of work to install bars in the Reserve. The initiative was stopped by a precautionary measure issued by Judge Andrea Danas, head of the Contentious, Administrative and Tax Court No. 9 of the City.
The claims resurfaced this year. This time, the trigger was the
Buena Vibra Festival,
organized on February 24 from lasa 16, on a property located in front of the main entrance of the Reserve. A week later it was the turn of the “Sunsetstrip”, led by DJ Hernán Cattaneo, who unleashed his powerful battery of lights and sounds for two nights.
Although the images of these highly convening events contrast markedly with the bucolic postcard of pampas grassland, forest and wetland that give shape to the Reserve - the habitat of
158 plant species and 522 varieties of fauna
-, the authorities of the University of Buenos Aires They reported that the Undersecretary of Operational Management, dependent on the General Directorate of Concessions, maintains collections in direct relation to each of the authorized activities.
On the other hand, the institution's response to a note presented by the Assembly on March 14, explains that "
15,000 to 20,000 attendees participate in the events,
the same average number of students, teaching and non-teaching staff in a “normal day of activities in Ciudad Universitaria.”
In addition, the statement records the presence of 85 thousand people at the recitals organized in the nearby Ríver stadium and the usual takeoff and landing of planes every seven minutes at the Jorge Newbery Airport, also very close to the Reserve. Regarding the possible impact of the shows that take place on the sports field, they state that
“sound measurements are carried out before the event and, during the show, every hour.”
The artistic programming that worries environmental groups registered another chapter on Saturday, April 6, when a large cast of electronic music leaders (including Jan Blomqvist, Sebastien Leger, Arodes, Pabels and DJ Karen) marked the closing of the season summer 2024 of the “Corona Sunset Sessions” festival,
steps from the second green space declared a Protected Area by the City Legislature in 2018.
The Costanera Norte Ciudad Universitaria Ecological Reserve was officially recognized as such by Law 4467, promulgated on January 16, 2013. All that rugged coastal strip - in which specimens of ceibo, criollo willow, river alders, tala and espinillo and 242 species of birds, reptiles, amphibians, butterflies, beetles, crickets and locusts - spontaneously emerged on land filled with rubble in the '60s and '70s near pavilions II and III of Ciudad Universitaria. Two decades later, the AMIA remains dumped there finished outlining an artificial gulf, known to students as “The Swamp.”
“The events held
comply with the recreation and leisure guidelines invoked,”
the university leadership insists. On the other hand, a group of supporters of coexistence in a sustainable environment express their concern and demand that they at least lower the decibels.
S.C.