Chile’s New National Parks

Chile acquired new national park land covering a total of 10 million acres — equivalent to the size of Switzerland — thanks to the biggest private land donation in history from Tompkins Conservation.

The donation allows Chile to create five new parks and expand three existing ones. The new parks will make up key parts of the Route of Parks, a 1,500-mile-long network of 17 parklands stretching all the way to Cape Horn.

The new national parks of Isla Magdalena, Corcovado and Melimoyu are a bit remote, but Pumalín and Patagonia will be easily accessible off the Carretera Austral, Chile’s famous Southern Highway. They have existing infrastructure and are open for business.

In Pumalín, hikers can access glaciers and a rim of a recently active volcano, plus marvel at millennia-old Alerce trees. Patagonia National Park is famous for its herds of guanacos, pumas and huemul deer.

The donation is made possible by philanthropists Kristine and Douglas Tompkins — the founder of the North Face and Esprit clothing empires — who moved to Chile from California in the 1990s and devoted themselves to conservation. They’ve been collecting pieces of land and restoring the native ecosystems.