Three decades later, Tompkins’ dream of a natural Patagonia lives on in southern Chile

The American billionaire Douglas Tompkins dedicated his fortune three decades ago to create a reserve protected from humans in southern Chile. Today his dream is an environmental treasure governed almost without interference by nature.

Between rugged mountains and deep valleys dominated by the wind, the Patagonia of Chile still maintains its wild essence thanks to the acts of conservation of this ecosystem in constant regeneration.

In the heart of the extreme south of Chile, national parks resist as a refuge for species of flora and fauna that “continue to play the rules of nature” in the midst of the advancement of human civilization, explains Javiera Ide, 33, in charge of communications of the Rewilding Chile Foundation, the legacy of the late environmentalist businessman.

In 1990 Tompkins bought and then donated 8,000 km2 of land to Chile and Argentina so that the respective countries could perpetuate the conservation task after his death in 2015, in an accident when he was kayaking on Lake General Carrera, in Patagonia.

These places with a unique biodiversity were described by the English scientist Charles Darwin (1809-1882) as the place where “the inanimate works of nature – rocks, ice, snow, wind and water – although they fought with each other , all of them were opposed to man, and they were the only ones that reigned with absolute sovereignty”, recalls the book “Darwin in Patagonia” about the visit to this southern end between 1832 and 1834, edited in 2005 by Marcelo Beccaceci.

These lands are currently conserved ecosystems where species that are or were threatened or in danger of extinction, such as the condor, the Andean huemul deer and the rhea, a South American bird similar to the ostrich, have returned to their habitat after a captivity that allows them to prepare for wildlife in the place where “the planet breaks”, according to the Chilean Pablo Neruda’s poem “The Lighted Sword” (1970).

“Patagonia is the place where the world begins, a place that is still wild, vast, where we can still see nature in all its splendor, she is the one who rules,” says Ide.

Huemul and condor

The coat of arms of Chile is flanked by two animals, a huemul and a condor, the first in danger of extinction and the second almost threatened, according to the Red List of Threatened Species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Both species have one last hope of hope in Patagonia, particularly in the Cerro Castillo National Park, a valley between snow-capped peaks that houses a reserve of huemules.

Park ranger Rody Álvarez has been visiting it daily for three years to verify the progress of a conservation program for these Andean deer.

There are barely 1,500 huemules left in the world, between Argentine and Chilean territory, and Álvarez is in charge of keeping the area as unshakable as possible so that the population does not decrease.

The huemul faces several dangers, “such as dogs that can attack them, forest fires” and, in recent times, the fragmentation of the territory, he says.

Dozens of kilometers further south, between glaciers and rivers, the Patagonia National Park is “an area of ​​frequent transit for condors,” says Cristian Saucedo, 48, director of the Fundación Rewilding Chile’s Wildlife Program.

These lands ceded by Tompkins to the Chilean State are home to 70% of the country’s condor specimens, the largest population of this species in South America.

In a windswept valley, in recent months several condors that had been rescued in trouble were released and thanks to conservation they are being rehabilitated in “one of the last natural refuges on the planet,” says Saucedo.

In that same valley, the population of the rhea continues to recover, an endemic bird from South America, which is currently in the category of least concern for extinction after recovering from a critical situation in the past.