
Pumalín Douglas Tompkins National Park (Spanish: ''Parque nacional Pumalín Douglas Tompkins'') is a
national park
A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...
in the
Palena Province
Palena Province () is the southernmost administrative area in Chile's Los Lagos Region Los Lagos (X). The area is also called Continental Chiloe or Northern Patagonia, as geographers consider the Palena Province to be the starting point of Chilea ...
of
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...
, created b
Tompkins Conservation which was endowed and led by the American
business magnate
A business magnate, also known as an industrialist or tycoon, is a person who is a powerful entrepreneur and investor who controls, through personal enterprise ownership or a dominant shareholding position, a firm or industry whose goods or ser ...
Doug Tompkins
Douglas Rainsford Tompkins (March 20, 1943 – December 8, 2015) was an American businessman, conservation movement, conservationist, outdoorsman, philanthropist, filmmaker, and agriculturalist. He founded the The North Face, North Face Inc, co ...
and his wife, former CEO of
Patagonia, Inc.,
Kris Tompkins
Kristine "Kris" Tompkins (born June 1950) is an American conservationist. Tompkins is the president and co-founder of Tompkins Conservation and was CEO of Patagonia for 20 years, leaving the company in 1993.
Early life
Born Kristine McDivitt ...
. Designated a Nature Sanctuary in 2005, Parque Pumalín was Chile's largest private nature reserve and operated as a public-access park, with an extensive infrastructure of trails, campgrounds, and visitor centers. By an accord announced on 18 March 2017, the park was gifted to the Chilean state and became a national park.
History
In 1991,
Doug Tompkins
Douglas Rainsford Tompkins (March 20, 1943 – December 8, 2015) was an American businessman, conservation movement, conservationist, outdoorsman, philanthropist, filmmaker, and agriculturalist. He founded the The North Face, North Face Inc, co ...
bought a large, semi-abandoned plot of land in the
Reñihue River Valley of the Chilean province of Palena. A mountaineer and conservationist who had been visiting Patagonia since the early 1960s, Tompkins sought to protect the tract, most of which was primeval
Valdivian temperate rainforest
The Valdivian temperate forests (NT0404) is an ecoregion on the west coast of southern South America, in Chile and Argentina. It is part of the Neotropical realm. The forests are named after the city of Valdivia. The Valdivian temperate rainfores ...
, from future exploitation. After moving to Reñihué to live full-time with his wife,
Kris Tompkins
Kristine "Kris" Tompkins (born June 1950) is an American conservationist. Tompkins is the president and co-founder of Tompkins Conservation and was CEO of Patagonia for 20 years, leaving the company in 1993.
Early life
Born Kristine McDivitt ...
, Doug began developing plans for a larger park, gradually acquiring additional adjacent properties from willing sellers. Ultimately, roughly 98 percent of the park's land area was bought from absentee landowners.
Tompkins Conservation (then called The Conservation Land Trust) subsequently added approximately in nearly contiguous parcels to form Pumalín Park, which was declared a Nature Sanctuary on August 19, 2005, by then-president
Ricardo Lagos
Ricardo Froilán Lagos Escobar (; born 2 March 1938) is a Chilean lawyer, economist and social-democratic politician who served as president of Chile from 2000 to 2006. During the 1980s he was a well-known opponent of the Chilean military di ...
. This special designation by the Chilean government granted the land additional protections to secure its ecological values and prevent development.
While nature-related philanthropy has a long tradition in the United States, large-scale private land acquisition for parks was unfamiliar in Chile, and initially generated skepticism and political opposition. The land holdings which eventually turned into Pumalín Park, stretched from the border of Argentina to the Pacific Ocean, effectively cutting the country in half. This was once described as a security threat by a Chilean official. Some locals said that the Tompkinses were going to remove cattle from the land and introduce American bison. Others said that the land was going to be used as a nuclear waste dump. Over the years of the project's development, confidence has been built, both locally and nationally, as Pumalín Park's public access infrastructure began serving thousands of visitors annually.
Pumalín Park was designated a national park in 2018, prompted by Tompkins Conservation's donation of almost for the new park, named Pumalín Douglas Tompkins National Park in honor of its founder.
Biodiversity
One of Tompkins' central commitments is to preserving
biodiversity
Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distribut ...
; the Pumalín conservation area not only provides visitors a spectacular wilderness experience, but also protects the area's threatened ecosystem and species. Although Chile lacks the faunal diversity of Amazon-area countries, it is rich in flora, with many endemic species and subspecies. The evergreen broadleaved forest, known in Chile as the
Valdivian temperate rainforest
The Valdivian temperate forests (NT0404) is an ecoregion on the west coast of southern South America, in Chile and Argentina. It is part of the Neotropical realm. The forests are named after the city of Valdivia. The Valdivian temperate rainfores ...
, includes thousands of plant species. The annual rainfall in the coastal forests of Pumalín Park is approximately . These exceptionally wet, original forests reach all the way to the ocean, something that is increasingly rare worldwide. In addition, the park protects some of the last remaining stands of
Alerce trees, one of the oldest species on Earth, with 25 percent of the remaining population of these forest giants being protected within the borders of the park.
The Park and the Local Economy
A ranger system, utilizing non-uniformed park rangers on the agricultural lands adjacent to the Nature Sanctuary, contributes to the park's stewardship. Small organic farms with activities such as animal husbandry, cheesemaking, ecotourism, wool handicrafts, and honey production function simultaneously as park ranger stations and visitor information centers. In this way both conservation and a contribution to the local economy are achieved. The project is aware of the need to include neighbors of the park, to create a broad-based cultural appreciation for wilderness and biodiversity conservation, as well as demonstrating how an agrarian economy, carefully matched to local conditions, can help sustain biodiversity and create economic opportunity.
El Amarillo
El Amarillo, the gateway town located at the park's southern entrance, was the site of a sweeping "beautification" campaign launched by the Tompkinses in 2007. Beauty was integral to the work of Doug Tompkins. He believed that a facelift to the town would instill pride in the local community and that pride would ripple and extend nationally. A nearby volcano eruption in 2008 decimated much of the town. Tompkins Conservation took on a special project of renovating the area. Among the renovations and new beautiful construction were four farms, a tourism building, two churches, the Puma Verde Market, a community center, two supermarkets, and over two dozen houses, all designed to suit the historic architecture of the area.
Tourism
One of the biggest ecotourist attractions of south Chile, Pumalín is accessible by car or boat
Caleta Gonzalo at the center of the Park, in the
Reñihué Fjord
Reñihué Fjord is a fjord located at ,
Earth Info, ''earth-info.nga.mil'' webpage:
. in Los Lagos Region of Chile. It opens into Gulf of Ancud and at its head, it receives the outflow of Reñihué Lake via the river of the same name. Its wat ...
, houses the park's main tourist infrastructure, including a restaurant, visitor center, cabañas (cabins), and a campground. Ferries run from the village of
Hornopirén
Hornopirén is a town in the commune of Hualaihué in Palena Province, Zona Austral, southern Chile. It lies along the northern portion of Carretera Austral. It had 3,629 inhabitants as of 2017.
Hornopirén is an important tourist stop on Chile’s ...
to Caleta Gonzalo during the summer months.
After the 2008 eruption of the
Chaitén Volcano
Chaitén (, ) is a Chilean town, commune and former capital of the Palena Province in Los Lagos Region. The town is north of the mouth of Yelcho River, on the east coast of the Gulf of Corcovado. The town is strategically close to the northern en ...
, the park was temporarily closed to visitors; it reopened to visitors in December 2010.
References
External links
*https://www.rutadelosparques.org/en/parque-nacional-pumalin-douglas-tompkins/ Pumalín Douglas Tompkins National Park
*http://news.mongabay.com/2006/1027-george_black.html
Mongabay
Mongabay (mongabay.com) is an American conservation news web portal that reports on environmental science, energy, and green design, and features extensive information on tropical rainforests, including pictures and deforestation statistics f ...
news article about Pumalín Park
*https://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3295673
ABC News ABC News most commonly refers to:
* ABC News (Australia), a national news service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
* ABC News (United States), a news-gathering and broadcasting division of the American Broadcasting Company
ABC News may a ...
nightly news broadcast profiling Pumalín Park on June 19, 2007
{{Authority control
Protected areas of Los Lagos Region
Parks in Chile
Nature conservation in Chile
Coasts of Los Lagos Region
Valdivian temperate forests
Protected areas established in 2018