Coco Legrand, Chile's most popular comic, loves nature and animals. And he is worried because “we live in an inhospitable world where there are agglomerations, not cities; consumers, not people; parking meters, not parks.”

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Legrand spoke with Tierramérica in an exclusive interview at his theater located in the Providencia district of Santiago, where he is performing his latest show, “De todo un Coco”.

Q: Does the seriousness of ecological problems require us to react with a serious attitude? A: The Earth is poisoned and we live in a world of fear: if I eat, my cholesterol rises; if I think, I lose my job; if I make love, I get AIDS; if I go for a walk, I get mugged. We live in an inhospitable world where there are agglomerations, not cities; consumers, not people; parking meters, not parks. This causes a reaction in us, and through humor one can speak ironically about what is happening.

Q: What image would you use to represent the relationship between human beings and nature? A: Nature, ever-changing and cyclical, provides the possibility of day and night, of cold and heat, and since we are a part of it, our attitude towards nature can change, even if it does so in a manic way. I think that we can be like poorly wound clocks, which despite having stopped, at least give the right time twice a day. I continue to be hopeful.

Q: You are a great observer of human behavior and for the last few years you have been a panelist on a TV show about animals. Are we as different from other species as we think we are? A: We say we are superior because we can modify the environment to serve our needs. But perhaps what makes us so profoundly different is that nature, fortunately, can find a poet or a musician among us, and not just ambitious destroyers.

Q: You once defined yourself as “a sad man with the vocation of a happy one”. Does that hold true for your attitude towards the future of the forests, the sea, and biodiversity? A: At the rate we're going, it could be that we look for formulas to create chicken breasts instead of chickens, gigantic hams instead of pigs, and that we lose all of the wonders of the world around us. I hope we open our eyes and see that technology won't return our lost paradise. It is up to us to bring it back.

Q: You have said that the children of today haven't ever seen a live chicken. What do you think the consequences of this lack of contact with nature will be? A: We are submerged in a virtual universe. We have blind faith in technology, and ignore what exists, what is real. We are proud of having turned ourselves into citizens of the world via the Internet, but we are strangers in our own homes. We don't know what our children are doing, if they have tried smoking marijuana, if they are already self-destructing. We no long know what is truly occurring.