Introduction
Ever since the birth of environmentalism in the 1960’s, people have experienced a growing awareness of how we affect the environment. But at the same time, this movement has been eclipsed by activities such as human expansion, pollution, and industrialization. All of these activities can be put into one word: Human Development. This conflict is a modern version of David and Goliath’s battle with a little twist. David, being the good, small environmentalists trying to fling some rocks at this colossal opponent in order to make justice for the environment; Goliath, being the greedy, powerful businessmen who won’t hesitate to destroy the environment if there’s a profit to be made. In the end, unlike the biblical story, Goliath always seems to win. Human development always seems to trample over the environment. Well, what if I told you that my research has taught me that David and Goliath can hold hands and take long walks on the beach? What if I told you that Human development and the Environment are so essential to one another that they, in fact, rely on each other? In the mystical rainforests of northern Patagonia, there is a conservation model in which human progress coexists peacefully with the preservation of the environment. In this research paper I will analyze in depth the conservation model of Pumalin Park in northern Patagonia. I will describe the history of the park, how preservation and conservation coexist at Pumalin, what opposition the Pumalin administration has faced, and how different social initiatives help to further conservation efforts. As a product of my field work at the Park, the following research question arose: Can human development coexist with the conservation model of Pumalin Park? Or more specifically, what are the lessons from the private conservation initiative in Pumalin that can be generalized to other conservation areas? My research indicates that there at least two aspects that can be learned from Pumalin experience: First, the advantages of defining a clear demarcation of objectives upon each area of the territory, in particular what is a preservation and what is a conservation area; Second, facing the reality that conservation projects will always face opposition it is necessary to act in the long term and address aesthetic as well as social actions to set a bridge with the comunity and political powers in the area.
History of Pumalin Park
Pumalin Park, located in Chilean Patagonia, is the largest privately owned conservation area in the world. For the past 25 years, the administration of Pumalin Park have strived to preserve this unique ecosystem, declare conservation areas for tourism, and emphasize the importance of a sustainable human development in order to improve the lives of the communities that live at the Park.
Pumalin Park was not acquired in one sitting. In 1991, the American entrepreneur Douglas Rainsford Tompkins--Founder of The North Face and Esprit Clothing Company and active conservationist-- acquired a 42,000-acre farm in Reñihue Valley in order to conserve its native temperate rainforest. On the years that followed, Doug along with a series of foundations (some of which he founded himself) proceeded to acquire more than 700,000 acres in the surrounding areas, and 98% percent of them from absentee owners. Doug had visited Chile several times since the ‘60s, and Patagonia was by far his favorite place to visit. In this trips, he devoted his time to mountain climbing and whitewater rafting among many other outdoor activities. Doug didn’t only enjoy nature but also had a deep concern about its future. His biggest concerns were fighting the global extinction crisis (the alarming rate at which species have been driven to extinction by irresponsible human progress) and the protecting the Earth’s last remaining wilderness.
After 1994, Douglas finally retired completely from the corporate world, moved to Chile and lived there full time. He devoted himself to the conservation of Pumalin Park among many other lands he owned in both Chile and Argentina that he acquired for conservation purposes. But Tompkins knew he couldn’t sustain his conservation efforts forever, after all, he was not in the corporate world anymore, and his money wasn’t going to last forever. This is why he had a dream: to build a strong network of National Parks throughout Chile and Argentina. But why National Parks? Because that is the highest legal conservation status you can obtain from any government. Also, it implies that the government will be required to invest in the park and not rely on a private owner for conservation efforts. Despite his willingness to donate his own lands to the State with the condition of having them declared National Parks, it is not an easy task to get a government to declare a National Park. This requires an immense amount of monetary investment for the creation and maintenance of a vast conservation area. As a consequence of these implications, Tompkins dream always relied on the collaboration of the State.
On December of 2015, Doug set out for his last adventure.
Doug passed away on December 8th, due to a kayaking accident in Patagonia. He may have passed, but his dream lives on. His wife, Kristen Tompkins--Ex-CEO of Patagonia Inc.-- along with every single person that works at Pumalin Park, have made sure to work untiringly towards the conservation and preservation of this unique ecosystem.
Douglas Rainsford Tompkins
Conservation vs Preservation at Pumalin Park
My research started upon my arrival to Chaiten on April 16th, 2016, and it was in this little town where Rodrigo Villablanca, chief administrator of Pumalin South, picked me up and took me to my cabin on the South side of Pumalin Park. Once established, I began my field work.
Every day consisted of going on rides with different people who had different roles at the Park. The first couple of days were crucial to understanding the purpose of Pumalin Park. Rodrigo Villablanca and Erwin Gonzalez, both administrators of different sections of the Park, explained to me how conservation and preservation coexist in the Park. But what’s the difference between these two? A preservation area, environmentally speaking, is any legally protected area in which no human intervention is allowed, whereas a conservation area is a legally protected area in which people are allowed to practice outdoor activities such as camping and hiking. Also, natural resources can be utilized at conservation areas (logging is very common on forestal conservation areas) as long as this is done in a sustainable manner. Both preservation areas and conservation areas serve the purpose of protecting the environment, with the only difference that conservation implies human interaction and preservation does not. What’s really unique about Pumalin Park is that conservation and preservation work in tandem. Having the main Carretera Austral highway (which is actually just a dirt road) cutting through the Park (see map below), Pumalin Park could not be preserved entirely given the human interaction that the annual flow of tourists going through this highway meant. Given this problem, the administration decided to conserve the areas surrounding the Carretera Austral and set up camping sites, hiking trails, and even a few cabins to receive and educate tourists about the importance of these conservation efforts. Conserving this area surrounding the Carretera Austral benefits the preservation of the rest of the park that’s away from it, protecting wildlife while managing sustainable tourism. This ingenious solution not only allowed the Pumalin administration to preserve this ecosystem but also made the Park accessible to the general public, thus, unifying taking care of the environment with a responsible human progress. But what’s so worth preserving at Pumalin? To begin with, its innumerable flora. Most of the plant life at Pumalin is endemic to the region and cannot be found anywhere else in the world. As one of my research tasks, I had to identify different diverse plant life and determine whether or not they were native or invasive species. I learned that native plants such as the prehistoric-looking Nalca and the tasty Murta (see pictures below), are both a crucial sugar-rich food source for animal life. There is an uncountable variety of endemic trees to Pumalin, but none of them more enormous and ancient than the Alerce (see picture below). Alerce can grow up to 200 ft in height 17 ft in diameter, making them the tallest tree in South America. But what is even more impressive than their height is their longevity. Alerce have been recorded to be more than 2000 years old, and the oldest of all, the Alerce milenario (millenial) is currently the 2nd oldest tree in the world, being 3622 years old (Clement, Joel P., Moffett Mark W., Shaw David C., Lara Antonio, Alarçon Diego, and Larrain Oscar L./ Crown Structure and Biodiversity in Fitzroya cupressoides, the Giant Conifers of Alerce Andino National Park, Chile) . This tree set its roots more than a 1000 years before the first Egyptian pyramids were built. Pumalin Park, having a considerable number of Alerce, have made the preservation of this specie (which is also an endangered one due to excessive logging) a major priority. On my first trip to the camping sites of Pumalin West, the park keeper showed me some of the specimens from afar, and explained that camping sites as well as hiking trails were purposely built away from Alerce in order to ensure their preservation. This demarcation of preservation and conservation areas is a staple of the Pumalin conservation model, for it allows tourists to appreciate the mighty Alerce while minimizing human interaction with them. This demarcation of conservation and preservation areas isn’t exclusive to Pumalin, and can be seen at most National Parks worldwide. For instance, Yosemite National Park, which receives more than 4 million visitors annually, has very strict preservation and conservation areas within the National Park. For rock climbing, which is one of the most practiced outdoor activities at Yosemite, there are specific routes and sections of the giant boulders that in which climbing is allowed, and others in which there are precious nesting sites in which climbing is forbidden by law (Stephen A. Boyle and Fred B. Samson/ Effects of Nonconsumptive Recreation on Wildlife: A Review). As well as the flora, fauna at Pumalin Park thrives among preservation efforts. Among innumerable number of insects, birds, fish, and mammals that can be found at Pumalin Park, there are three endangered species that have been able to thrive thanks to this conservation model (see pictures below). The elusive Pudú, a small, reddish, deer-like mammal. The magnificent andean Puma, a fierce feline who is a close relative of the North American cougar. And the elegant Tonina, a black and white dolphin species that roams throughout the Patagonian Fjords. Of these three species, I was able to sight both Toninas and Pudús. Unfortunately, the sightings were brief and I was not able to get them on camera.
On my interview with Erwin Gonzalez, the general administrator of Pumalin West, he explained to me that it would have been catastrophic for the ecosystem if they had actually decided to preserve the entirety of the Park, given that tourists would resort to camping illegally on the Park and actually do more damage to the environment than they would in a designated sustainable campsite. He also elucidated that given the increasing numbers of tourists that have been visiting Pumalin (In the 2015 summer season about 50,000 tourists visited the Park, whereas in the 2016 summer season the number of visitors exceeded 70,000) the Pumalin administration felt an obligation to address tourism in order to prevent unregulated camping affect other areas of Patagonia along the Carretera Austral.
Pudu
Andean Puma
Tonina
Nalca
Murta
Alerce
Campsite at Pumalin Park
Trail at Pumalin Park
Cabins at Pumalin Park
In order to show my field research in Pumalin Park, you can see below a table of dayly activities and the people that guided my research, see Table 1 in the appendix.
The Opposition
My research consisted in finding as much information as I could on Pumalin Park while I was still in the US, to subsequently travel to Chile in order to engage in my field work. But there was very little information about the Park online. Despite having a difficult time searching, I was able to research some of the initiatives for the conservation of the Park. After searching for various articles about the Park, I also stumbled upon a number of articles which were against the conservation initiatives of Pumalin Park. Some local authorities were seriously concerned with the preservation initiatives, and argued that a foreigner (Tompkins) shouldn’t be allowed to obstruct government initiatives even if they infringed preservation efforts at the Park. Also, many locals were infuriated because they were no longer allowed to do activities that they had been doing for decades such as hunting, fishing, and logging. As a result, the establishment of Pumalin Park faced a considerable opposition from locals. As I was crossing the patagonian Fjords by ferry, I overheard some locals arguing about Pumalin’s preservation initiatives saying that they missed being able to log freely throughout the Park. At the same time, they wouldn’t stop talking about how beautiful their land is. It seems that the remaining opposition does not understand that irresponsible human development only affects the beauty of their homeland. I later found out on my interview with Rodrigo Villablanca that the opposition had decreased considerably since the creation of Pumalin Park as a product of the incorporation of the locals into the Pumalin workforce, and clearer information about the administration’s willingness to collaborate with the government. However, this is not an isolated case. Sequoia National Park in central California also faced a fierce opposition from locals as well as logging lobbies. They stated that the declaration of the Sequoia National Park would be a waste of California’s natural resources. Similarly to what happened at Pumalin Park, they still established Sequoia National Park, but in addition they declared a number of National Forests in which sustainable logging is permitted. This segregation ensures the preservation of biodiversity in the National Park, and also encourages a sustainable human development in the nearby National Forests.
Congressman David Sandoval/ Tompkins outspoken opposer
Social Initiatives
Rodrigo showed me around the little village that we were in and explained to me some of the social initiatives that are in place for the community that works at Pumalin Park. One of them was the “Embellishment Project” which aimed to improve the houses and yards of a small town right outside Pumalin South called “El Amarillo”, where most of the population that work at Pumalin South live. This Project changed radically the reality of the workers of the Park. Unlike “El Amarillo”, most nearby towns who aren’t under the wing of the Pumalin administration consists of miserable settlements with houses made out of precarious tin roofs and wooden (sometimes rotten) walls. Adding to that, many people in the area rely on raising livestock and planting crops in order to feed themselves as well as their families. Sadly, most yards are poorly maintained and it makes it hard for them to raise farm animals or plant crops. The “Embellishment Project” is the solution that the Pumalin administration created to address this problem. This project works in different ways. One of the labors includes cutting tall grass, removing weeds, and restoring the eroded soil in order to be able to plant crops and raise small livestock such as chickens and sheep. It also deals with home improvements such as replacing aesthetically unappealing tin roofs with recycled, good-quality wood, and installing sustainable heating systems such as fire stoves (in which one can cook as well). This project was entirely financed by the Pumalin administration with the goal of improving people’s lives in order to create a strong local pride. As a result, a micro-sustainable economy was born.
House in “El Amarillo” before “Embellishment Project”
House in “El Amarillo” after “Embellishment Project”
I personally experienced this way of living at my cabin. I relied on a fire stove to cook and heat up the entire cabin, washed my dishes with cold water only, and used electricity (which was available at the cabin) generated by a small river turbine nearby. I was amazed by how well I could live with such a small carbon footprint. At a local scale, I learned that the “Embellishment Project” was the most important project in place. At a larger scale, there is an even bigger project named the “Scenic Route”.
The “Scenic Route” project consists of a series of improvements throughout the Carretera Austral highway in order to beautify roadsides and transform driving through the Patagonian wilderness into a more illustrative, scenic experience. I found it hard to understand why the administration had decided to invest so much money into a project based mostly on aesthetics, but then I realized how important beauty is for conservation. Yellowstone National Park wouldn’t be as frequented if it didn’t have active geysers and deep canyons, and Yosemite National Park probably wouldn’t have become a National Park if it weren’t for its colossal boulders and humongous sequoias. By beautifying roads and creating conservation areas that can host tourists, the Pumalin administration grows closer to making Pumalin a National Park. The Pumalin administration hopes to make the Chilean government approve and fund the “Scenic Route” project for the entirety of the 770 miles of the Carretera Austral. As of now, it has only been approved for a 46-mile section of the Carretera Austral right through Pumalin Park. Projects such as the “Scenic Route” and the “Embellishment Project” are proof that humanity can develop alongside conservation efforts.
Picture of the Carretera Austral at Pumalin Park/ “Scenic Route”
Carretera Austral outside of Pumalin Park
Conclusion
An ancient Cree Indian proverb says: ¨When the last tree is cut, the last river poisoned, and the last fish dead…We will discover we can’t eat money¨ We tend to see human progress and the environment as two separate things when in fact human progress wouldn’t exist without the latter. Adopting sustainable models of living is the only way to sustain our current human progress. This is why conservation models such as Pumalin Park are so crucial for a responsible human progress. My research has proven that it is, in fact, possible for human progress to not only coexist, but thrive alongside the Pumalin conservation model. Pumalin Park serves as an example of a successful conservation model, and can be used as a template for conservation throughout the world. This example, besides acting as a template for private and public conservation areas, encourages the creation of new conservation models that steer human progress in a direction which does not antagonize the environment. A lot can be learned from the Pumalin conservation model, and conservation throughout the world can benefit from it. For instance, conservation models in Massachusetts (where I reside) could benefit greatly from the environmental solutions of Pumalin Park. An example would be the Webster conservation area in Newton, Massachusetts, which used to be privately-owned land and was given to the City of Newton 1916, to then be declared a conservation area. Based on my research I found that Webster conservation area could benefit from the demarcation of preservation and conservation areas, which it currently lacks. Webster conservation area, focusing only on conservation, does not enforce strict preservation, as a result, you can see graffiti all over the beautiful igneous rock walls that are home to fragile life such as fungi and insects. A more planned segregation of conservation and preservation areas would most definitely minimize human induced damage to this ecosystem. As stated on my introduction, how the Pumalin administration demarked conservation and preservation areas, handled the opposition to the conservation initiatives, and implemented social initiatives is , in fact, an exemplar to both public and private conservation areas throughout the world.
APPENDIX
Table 1. DAY-PEOPLE-ACTIVITIES
1 Rodrigo Arrival. Meeting with Rodrigo in Chaiten. First explanation about the history of Pumalin and its current challenges: environmental, economic and social sustainability. Visit to "El Amarillo" and explanation about the contrast between Pumalin construction and previous local cheap construction (Photos)
2 Rodrigo & Diego Rodrigo shows me Pumalin South, the sawmill and introduce me to the workers. They explain me their work, their materials and how do they have recovered ancient traditions about constructions and materials from Chiloé settlers. Diego shows me their camping sites and constructions around the Carretera Austral.
3 Cristian & Matt Cristian takes me to Caleta Gonzalo (Pumalin Port; in Pumalin west ), explained to me all the new constructions and how they used local materials (native woods) for the houses and infrastructure. Matt shows me around, the greenhouses and camping , and data from last year occupancy and trafic.
4 Erwin & Matt Erwin took me to Pumalin West to show me the Alerce specimens along the Park (West). Addditionally he sows me the best sites for pudu sighting. Matt helps me to frame my research centered in how the experiences of private environmental entrepreneurs could be useful for similar initiatives aroun the world.
5 Rodrigo Rorigo show me around the restored farmlands in Pumalin South, and give me a tour to El Amarillo greenhouses. We have lunch with their vegetables there.
6 Rodrigo Rodrigo shows me around the construction sites of the embellishment project and drives me through the Carretera Austral. Explaining what they called the "Scenic Route" project.
7 Rodrigo Bus ride Back to Puerto Varas.
Rodrigo Rodrigo Villablanca. General Administrator of Pumalin South
Diego Diego Garcia. Park keeper, Pumalin South
Erwin Erwin Gonzales. General Administrator of Pumalin West
Matt Matt Miller. Park keeper, Pumalin West. American.
Cristian Contractor. Supervisor of constructions and construction contracts
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