Photo Credit: By Linde Waidhofer
Located 1,200 miles south of Santiago in southern Chilean Patagonia, the Patagonia National Park of the future encompasses over 200,000 acres of grassland, lenga forest, and glaciated peaks. Purchased in 2004 by the U.S.-based, non-profit Conservacion Patagonica (CP), the Estancia Valle Chacabuco property was once Chile’s third largest sheep estancia, home to more than 25,000 sheep. After decades of overgrazing, the delicate grasslands had started to desertify and blow away. Through the removal of the sheep and the implementation of a volunteer reseeding program in the most negatively affected areas, the grasslands are rebounding. After 12 years of hard work rehabilitating this degraded landscape, building trails and touristic infrastructure, and monitoring populations of threatened native species, the park is nearing its final phase of construction. When the park is donated to the government of Chile, it will combine with the Jeinimeni Reserve to the north and the Tamango Reserve to the south to become one 650,000-acre national park. This grand experiment in wildlands recovery is now in its final phase of development. The goal is to donate the park and its infrastructure to the Chilean government by 2018. The future Patagonia National Park will become the crown jewel of the Chilean park system, and will inspire all who visit to help protect wild nature.
Why Here?
At the start of this project, CP realized it had an opportunity to work in a singularly strategic location. Not only is Patagonia a wild ecological treasure, but the future park occupies a particularly significant and critical area of this region. Though Patagonia contains many protected areas, grasslands within the park system are not well represented. Spectacularly beautiful, this area presents a unique opportunity to create a new national park in an area that is both ecologically critical and politically smart. CONAF, the Chilean agency in charge of parks, has listed the Chacabuco Valley as a top conservation priority for decades due to its biological importance; however, the agency lacked the funds to purchase the property.