Estancia Valle Chacabuco, located 20 miles north of Cochrane in the heart of Chilean Patagonia, and bordering two national reserves, is in an area that is home to one of the world’s largest Huemel deer populations. The protection of this habitat has the potential to help bring this mammal back from the brink of extinction. That, combined with the natural beauty of the property’s foothills and valleys along with sweeping views of the surrounding alpine mountains, provides an extraordinary opportunity to create a world-class national park.

Conservacion Patagonica secured the funds to purchase this property through the combined efforts of donors including Patagonia, Inc., the clothing company owned by Yvon and Malinda Chouinard; Peter Buckley, chairman of the David Brower Center in Berkeley, California; Tom Strickler, founder of Endeavor, a Los Angeles-based talent and literary agency; Rich and Elizabeth Salem of the San Miguel Conservation Foundation in Telluride, Colorado; Dan and Rae Emmett of Santa Monica, California; and Charles Carroll of Rowayton, Connecticut.

Conservacion Patagonica founder and director, Kristine Tompkins, said the organization has already begun discussions to donate this property immediately to CONAF, the Chilean national parks administration, in an effort to designate this property as a national park, while simultaneously signing an agreement with CONAF giving Conservacion Patagonica a seven-to-ten-year period to orchestrate the clean up and restoration of the property.

            “As a national park, Valle Chacabuco should prove to be as good as the Tetons,” said Yvon Chouinard.

The push to establish a new national park around the acquisition, restoration and protection of Estancia Valle Chacabuco is in addition to Conservacion Patagonica’s ongoing conservation work at Estancias Monte León, Dor-Aike and El Rincón.

            Monte León, on the southern coast of Argentina’s Santa Cruz Province, was donated to National Parks of Argentina in 2002, creating the first-ever coastal national park in that country.

Conservacion Patagonica, a California-based nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection, restoration and maintenance of wildland ecosystems and biodiversity in the Patagonia region, is in the midst of a fundraising effort to continue these programs.

Gregory Crouch

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