A project to promote sustainable tourism and environmental protection in the Cochamó Valley, in the Chilean Patagonia.
The Cochamó Valley in northern Chilean Patagonia is a stunning natural haven facing increasing pressure from mass tourism and anthropogenic exploitation. The valley is part of the Valdivian rainforest, a coastal ecosystem that has been referred to as “The Lungs of Patagonia”, brimming with endangered and endemic flora and fauna.
From a technical standpoint, Cochamó is a collection of private backcountry parcels connected by a roughly 12 kilometer-long trail. Land owners, local community members and organizations, international NGOs, and climbers from around the world have worked together to create the infrastructure that visitors now use to explore the area. Such an approach to developing sustainable tourism has created a world class destination that in many ways is more attainable to most Chileans than more famous national parks. However, from a formal point of view, Cochamò Valley does not have a federal land designation, like “park” or “reserve”, that can offer legal protection from industrial exploitation.
Over the past years, anthropogenic pressures have become a common threat to this natural gem. The largest land holding in the area – the Hacienda Pucheguin, which spans more than 1300 km2 – is owned by Roberto Hagemann, a Chilean businessman who has based his fortune primarily on massive hydroelectric projects and real estate investment. In 2015, the company of which he is a primary stakeholder attempted to install a huge hydroelectric power plant on Río Manso, the next river south of the Cochamó Valley. The project was shut down by Chile’s Supreme Court, which upheld the Third Environmental Tribunal’s resolution that the “anthropological study of the socio-ecological impacts on Indigenous people was inadequate” (more in this article). Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time that a hydroelectric dam project threatened the unique cultural and ecological heritage of the region. As a matter of fact, in 2009, the Spanish power company Endesa initiated a project that involved a series of dams on the Río Cochamó. The project was shut down when the then president Michel Bachelet “decreed that 11 watersheds, among them the Cochamó […] would be off-limits to hydroelectric dam projects on account of their high conservation and tourism value”.
To address this issue, the local ONG Friends of Cochamó – in collaboration with Source International – launched an initiative to advance the recognition of the Cochamó Valley as a “Nature Sanctuary” (Sanctuario de Naturaleza), a powerful conservation designation in Chile. Preserving this piece of land will establish an ecological corridor with a string of national parks in Chile and Argentina that stretch from the lakes around Bariloche to the southern tip of South America, thus allowing animals to roam freely through the wilderness.
The project also involves the construction of sustainable wooden trails, the production of educational panels, and community workshops on environmental conservation, thereby promoting environmental awareness and sustainable tourism. The project is funded by the European Outdoor Conservation Association.
The first year of the project has passed and we can proudly say that we have already achieved some important milestones – including advancing on the paths, starting toco-create the workshops, and advancing with the advocacy actions.
Between the second half of 2023 and the end of 2024, we built approximately 1.6 kilometers of wooden boardwalk near the “Segundo Roce” area, in the La Junta sector. Work was paused during the high tourist season and slowed by heavy rain in April, May, and August. Despite these challenges, we successfully connected the first section of the trail to the middle segment and restored a critical 395-meter stretch at the end of the path, which had been nearly impassable. As of now, the first 7 kilometers of the trail are fully accessible. To complete the entire route, we still need to work on around 4–5 kilometers, including building roughly 800 meters of additional boardwalk. This missing part will enable connecting the middle section to the end of the trail.
Since the beginning of the project, we have engaged with the local community, local organizations, and the school of Cochamó to co-design a series of workshops focused on environmental education and the protection of the valley. The workshops will take place at the beginning of 2026, just before the inauguration of the trail. In agreement with local partners, the workshops will target two groups – students and teachers from the secondary school (ages 10–18), and the broader local population – through open sessions in the school’s communal space. The focus will be on trail conservation, ecosystem preservation, and the development of content for the interpretive panels.
Throughout 2024, we held a series of online meetings with local teachers and partners to define the main themes for the educational panels that will accompany the trail. These topics will be introduced to students, who will be responsible for developing the final content by June 2025. This timeline will ensure that both the physical panels and the accompanying digital access system (available at the trail entrance, where Wi-Fi is accessible) are ready for the trail’s official opening ahead of the next tourist season.
From the very beginning, we have worked to secure the highest possible conservation status for the Cochamó Valley. In the early stages of the project, we reached out to several key stakeholders to coordinate advocacy efforts aimed at protecting the area. One of the first organizations we contacted was the Freyja Foundation. In collaboration with our partners at Friends of Cochamó, we held several meetings with Freyja’s team to share our project and long-term conservation goals.
In May 2024, the Freyja Foundation launched a new initiative called Conserva Puchegüín and acquired a critical piece of land, which they plan to donate to the local community. This property includes 8 of the 12 kilometers of the trail we are currently restoring and represents a key access point to the valley. Thanks to this acquisition, access to the upper valley now lies entirely within protected land.
We continue to work toward securing official conservation status for a larger portion of the valley, and ideally the entire area, but this milestone marks a significant step forward for the long-term protection of Cochamó.
.jpg)
