Private Protection Initiatives in Mountain Areas of Southern Chile and Their Perceived Impact on Local Development—The Case of Pumalín Park

Abstract

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 Andean Southern Volcanic Zone: a review on the legacy of the latest volcanic eruptions

“…2A). On the other hand, modest (VEI ≤3) eruptions such as those at Lonquimay (1988Lonquimay ( -1990, Llaima (2008Llaima ( -2009, Planchón-Peteroa (2010-2011, 2018-2019, Villarrica (2015), and Nevados de Chillán (2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020)(2021)(2022) have been scarcely studied (<15 contributions each), despite their comparatively longer eruptive cycles. Of these, the only exception is the Copahue 2012-2021 eruptive cycle, with over 32 publications.…”

“…There is a variety of protected zones in Chile and Argentina that include volcanic areas (e.g., Pellet et al, 2005;Sruoga, 2008;Basic and Arriagada, 2012;Rivera and Vallejos-Romero, 2015;Hora, 2018;Casadevall et al, 2019;Coronato and Schwarz, 2022). In Chile, volcanoes are central elements of geoheritage initiatives, represented by the Kütralkura UNESCO geopark and many projects such as Cajón del Maipo and Pillanmapu (e.g., Benado et al, 2019;Daskam, 2022;Schilling et al, 2023;Orellana et al, 2023).…”

Meanwhile, in Aysén-Patagonia : exploring discursive transformations on environment and development in a remote periphery

“…Tompkins Conservation is a non-profit organization, co-founded by the American environmental philanthropists Douglas Tompkins (1943Tompkins ( -2015, and his wife Kristine Tompkins. Over the past thirty years, Tompkins Conservation has carried out extensive work on nature protection throughout southern Chile and Argentina, setting a precedent for private as well as public conservation, by creating protected areas and implementing rewilding programs (Busscher et al 2018, Hora 2018. In 2017, as part of a broader conservation strategy, Tompkins Conservation signed a cooperation agreement with the Chilean government aiming to create new national parks in Patagonia, to enlarge the surface of three other parks, to reclassify national reserves as national parks and to create the Route of Parks of Patagonia (Ministerio del Medio Ambiente 2017a).…”