Environmental Battle for Southern Chile Part I: Dams, Roads, and Pumalin Park

First some background. The most important economic issue being for the people in this part of southern Chile is the road. There is no direct road connecting Chile South of Hornopiren to the rest of Chile. Across the region, you see cars and houses with signs that say “Carretera a Chile Ahora!” (Road to Chile Now!). This seems a reasonable demand, being as the gap to connect the highways involves about a hundred kilometers of missing road.

Well, the road happens to be missing where the largest private park and nature reserves in the World is located. Pumalin Park with many endangered species of plants and animals is owned by an association started by the retired U.S. Businessman turned environmentalist Douglas Tompkins. Well, that too seems it would be reasonable to want to protect this natural resources of Southern Chile. Much of the local population supports the park and what it has done for the local economy and understand the importance of preserving such a World treasure.

Well, if that was the end of the story it would seem that their needs to be some balance struck allowing a road through the park, while carefully attempting to protect the parks fragile ecosystem. Besides, as bad as a roads are, they do exist in national parks all over the world. Nature reserves and highways can coexist on some level. In fact, Douglas Tompkins has plenty of people building and maintaining roads and airstrips all over his park. He is not against building a road or two of his own.