| Fast Facts |
location
just north of Valdivia south to the Gulf of Ancud
ecoregions
Valdivian Temperate Forest, Araucanian Marine, Valdivian Freshwater
project size
600,000 acres
preserves
Punta Curiñanco,
Valdivian Coastal Reserve
public lands
Reserva Forestal Valdivia, Reserva de Alerce Costero, public lands held by Army and forest service
partners
Comité Nacional Pro Defensa de la Fauna y Flora, Senda Darwin Foundation, World Wildlife Fund, Austral University, Coastal Range Coalition
conservancy initiatives
Freshwater, Global Climate Change, Marine
natural events
Magellanic penguin migration, December– January; red-legged cormorant nesting, year round; murtilla and calafate berries, April–May | |
 | |
 |
|
|
| In this temperate rain forest now threatened with deforestation, relict species like small marsupials are living reminders of a primordial world when southern Chile was linked to New Zealand and Australia. |
|
|
Autumn tints the trees of the Valdivian Coastal Range.
© Nicolas Piwonka |
|
The Valdivian Coastal Range runs in a narrow strip along Chile’s southern coast, stretching north from the Gulf of Ancud to a promontory just beyond the city of Valdivia. Remote beaches and rocky shorelines harbor sea lions, red-legged cormorants and a healthy population of endangered marine otter. Rolling hills are blanketed in evergreen forests—one of only five temperate rain forests in the world. Two marsupials unique to South America and many woody plants are “living fossils” of an ancient time when this land was part of a larger land mass linked to New Zealand and Australia.
During the last ice age, glaciers covered areas to the east and south, forcing many species to take refuge in the Valdivian Coastal Range. Here they evolved in isolation from the rest of the continent and the world, resulting in a proliferation of many species that exist nowhere else. The majority of Valdivian amphibians and seed plants are globally unique, as are half of its freshwater fish and 33 percent of its mammals.
For hundreds of years Chile’s indigenous Mapuche people defended their forests from Inca and Spanish invaders. When the Spanish succeeded in colonizing southern Chile late in the 19th century, 250 miles of the Valdivian coastline were still largely forested. Today, however, logging, agriculture and commercial uses are rapidly shrinking the Mapuche’s traditional resources. Local environmentalists use the term “false green” to describe the deceiving, lush growth of exotic tree plantations now threatening to replace native temperate rain forest. At the same time, native trees are being overharvested for firewood, and highway construction threatens the only known habitat for olivillo trees, 65-foot evergreens that can live as long as 400 years.
In 2001 The Nature Conservancy helped our Chilean partner Comité Nacional Pro Defensa de la Fauna y Flora establish the 200-acre Punta Curiñanco Reserve to demonstrate private land conservation and protect olivillo trees. Efforts planned for the future include establishing new protected areas—given that the Valdivian Coastal Range has no national parks—and developing native tree nurseries for forest restoration and alternative sources of fuel wood and income for local residents.
View a digital photo scrapbook of the Valdivian Coastal Reserve in Chile.
Learn more about The Nature Conservancy's work in Chile. |
|
| Conservation Profile |
targets
coastal old-growth olivillo forests, marine otter, pudú deer, mountain monkey, alerce tree
stresses
deforestation, coastal highway construction, overfishing, water pollution
strategies
promote ecologically compatible land-use practices, engage community in natural resource management and private land protection, establish new protected areas
results
Punta Curiñanco Reserve and Valdivian Coastal Reserve established; marine park designation pending to protect endangered marine otter | | | | |
