Patagonia National Park (Chile)

Originally one of the region's largest sheep ranches, Estancia Valle Chacabuco changed hands many times over the past century.[7] British explorer Lucas Bridges established the area as ranchland in 1908, but through the efforts of the Eduardo Frei Montalva administration to redistribute wealth, the land was expropriated and divided between several local families in 1964. The land was reclaimed once again, this time by the Pinochet administration, and then sold to Belgian landowner Francoise de Smet in 1980.

Kris and Doug Tompkins[8][9] first visited the Chacabuco Valley in 1995. CONAF (Chile's National Forest Corporation) had listed the Chacabuco Valley as a top conservation priority for over 30 years, due to its unique array of native ecosystems. After two decades of declining profits, in 2004, Conservación Patagónica (now called Tompkins Conservation) purchased the 70,600-hectare (174,500-acre) Estancia Valle Chacabuco from de Smet and began purchasing smaller holdings from willing sellers in the Chacabuco Valley, intending to create a continuous reserve to meet the edges of the nearby Jeinimeni and Lago Cochrane (Tamango) national reserves.[10][11]

The Chacabuco Valley, the heart of Patagonia National Park, was for generations a vast sheep and cattle ranch, with almost 25,000 animals being raised on the land in a single year. The native grasslands were degraded by years of intense livestock grazing, leading to patchy desertification of the soils, and to the decline of wildlife populations that are native to the grasslands. With the purchase of the Estancia in 2004, Conservación Patagónica (CP) began working to remove fencing and re-seed former pastures with native grasses, opening up the land to the return of native species such as the guanaco, and the endangered huemul deer. Recovery of the huemul is a top priority for the organization, which is conducting projects to monitor and protect the park's population of 100-200 animals, one of the largest known surviving populations on earth.[12]

• Ecosystem Restoration:

Patagonia has suffered its share of ecological abuse: intensive sheep ranching on sandy, arid soils has resulted in widespread desertification. In the transition from sheep ranch to the national park, Conservación Patagónica aimed to reverse these damages, restore productive habitat, and create a model of ecosystem restoration for Patagonia. The grasslands recovery program, launched in 2004, began with removing almost all livestock. Conservación Patagónica's volunteer program performed the bulk of the work of ecosystem restoration. As of 2011, they removed over half of the 640 kilometres (400 mi) of habitat-fragmenting ranch fencing. Volunteers also collected seeds from native coiron grasses, which professional ecosystem restoration workers used to re-seed heavily damaged areas.

• Wildlife Recovery:

Endangered huemul deer, collared as part of recovery program

Conservación Patagónica's large-scale ecosystem restoration work, now carried out by Rewilding Chile, serves as the foundation for targeted species-specific programs, such as the effort to monitor and protect the endangered and emblematic huemul deer. As wildness returns to this vast area, the populations of keystone species are finding a new equilibrium. With livestock gone, grasslands are producing more and better quality food for a range of herbivores, which have access to prime habitats and can roam freely without fences. Wildlife recovery programs take this ecosystem-level transition as the jumping-off point for initiatives to protect keystone species. The huemul deer represents the top priority for the Patagonia National Park project: habitat loss, diseases transmitted from livestock, hunting, and predation by domestic dogs have diminished its population to 1,500 individuals. Tracking pumas with GPS collars uncovers new information about their predation patterns, home ranges, and movements—critical data given their proximity to the huemul deer population. Simultaneously, Conservación Patagónica implemented strategies such as livestock guardian dogs to mitigate predator-livestock conflicts.

Interior of the Visitor Center in Patagonia National Park

One of CP's major focuses at the Patagonia National Park project was constructing durable, accessible public access infrastructure in order to provide visitors with a comfortable, engaging experience at the park. They built a park headquarters to include overnight accommodations, a restaurant, a museum, and visitor center. Architecture serves as a tool for social change: the aesthetic quality of park infrastructure conveys the cultural value of nature. Historic Patagonian buildings provide visitors with a vernacular architectural vocabulary tied to the region's history. These durable, solid, well-insulated buildings will require minimal upkeep and use local materials whenever possible: stone quarried on-site and recycled wood. In addition, an innovative renewable energy system, composed of solar, wind, and mini-hydro generation facilities, makes the park the world's first energy-independent park and minimize its carbon footprint. They also constructed trails and campgrounds to allow visitors to access the wilderness areas of the park, and to reach the neighboring reserves. By providing recreational opportunities, the park bolstered eco-tourism in the region and supported local businesses and communities while inspiring a deeper respect for nature in park visitors.[13]

From the start of the project, CP began developing collaborations with neighbouring communities in order to expand local visits to the park, to include area residents in employment opportunities, and facilitate the development of a successful ecotourism economy in the region as the park grows. By engaging children and other members of the local community, the park will inspire awareness and dedication to conservation. Conservación Patagónica offered jobs to all former gauchos and developed programs to retrain them as park rangers and conservation workers. A school outreach program brings local children into the park to learn about endangered species such as the huemul deer, and the potential community benefits of conservation. Conservación Patagónica hosts an annual Huemul Festival and hike. Huemul scholarships have allowed more than fifty students to continue their studies.[14]