Worldwide, but particularly in Latin America, private protected areas (PPAs), including in mountain areas, have become increasingly numerous. In some Latin American countries, PPAs complement the public protected areas to a significant degree. Beneficiaries of these private protection initiatives, which often close gaps in fragmented biomes, may be governments or eco-tourism operators. Drawbacks of PPAs are the lack of clear definitions and ownership, the absence of suitable management, green grabbing, and limited government support. This article gives an overview of PPAs in mountain regions and presents the most important literature published so far.
This study explores the impacts perceived by the local population in Neltume, a small rural village in the mountains of southern Chile, after a private protected area, the Huilo Huilo Biological Reserve, was established. Since the 1990s, Neltume has experienced economic transition from the forestry sector to the development of special-interest tourism. This research aims to investigate how this transition affects the local population and tourism in the area. Methods used were secondary data review, participant observation, semi-structured interviews with key informants, and questionnaires with local householders, students and tourists. The results indicate that this kind of private protected area plays an important role in local development. However, such developments could present a risk in the future because they create a strong dependency for local inhabitants on just one economic activity.
This paper aims to identify the socio-economic impacts perceived by the local community to be caused by Pumalín Park, one of the biggest and most remarkable private protected areas in Chile. In recent years, the Pumalín Park project has had a tremendous influence on the local economy by providing job opportunities for local entrepreneurs, protecting native forest and strengthening social awareness, particularly in the nearby town of Chaitén, which was stricken in 2008 by a volcanic eruption. The methods used were secondary data review, semi-structured interviews with key informants and questionnaires aimed at assessing the local population's perception of the park's contribution to their community. The results indicate that Pumalín Park plays an important role in local development, enhancing not only conservation of fragile mountain ecosystems, but also revitalizing the economic base of this rural and marginalized area of southern Chile.
The Valdivian temperate rainforest (VTR) is a biome on the South American continent with high endemism that has experienced an intensive land-cover change in recent decades due to the expansion of agriculture, plantations of introduced forests, and urban growth. Today, the biome hosts key parts of the country’s agricultural and forestry industries. Previous studies focused on quantifying native forest and plantation cover area and exotic forest plantation area, among others. However, the importance of mountain areas as refuge of native forest in Chile remains unexplored. The aim of this research is to highlight the role of latitude and slope on land cover in the VTR. A new methodological approach was used combining global classified datasets. Our results indicate that high mountain areas are the core location of the remaining primary forests and endemism whereas low mountain areas are dominated by exotic forest plantations. Between 40–48° S (The Los Ríos, Los Lagos, and Aysén Regions and high-mountain areas), in general, serve as a natural reservoir where human-induced land-cover change has not occurred on a large scale. Most public and private conservation areas are in high mountain areas, whereas low mountain areas and plain areas lack conservation schemes and are more prone to land cover change towards forestry. Considering geomorphological features in land cover change analysis can reveal interesting new perspectives in this research area.
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