Abstract
This paper aims to identify the socio-economic impacts perceived by the local community to be caused by Pumalín Park, one of the biggest and most remarkable private protected areas in Chile. In recent years, the Pumalín Park project has had a tremendous influence on the local economy by providing job opportunities for local entrepreneurs, protecting native forest and strengthening social awareness, particularly in the nearby town of Chaitén, which was stricken in 2008 by a volcanic eruption. The methods used were secondary data review, semi-structured interviews with key informants and questionnaires aimed at assessing the local population’s perception of the park’s contribution to their community. The results indicate that Pumalín Park plays an important role in local development, enhancing not only conservation of fragile mountain ecosystems, but also revitalizing the economic base of this rural and marginalized area of southern Chile.
Highlights
In Chile, as in many other countries in Latin America and in the world, private conservation significantly contributes to national protected areas [1,2,3]
With 38% and 36% agreeing totally, people still highly agreed with the question: Is Pumalín Park able to improve economic activities which are not related to tourism, such as services, handcrafts, fishing? The results show that the vast majority of the people living in Chaitén see Pumalín Park as economically very positive
The statement, as to whether Pumalín Park was able to attract other investments to the region, was agreed with by a majority (28% agreed totally and 34% agreed moderately). These results coincide with the vision of the local government, which states in the master plan that tourism is an opportunity for the economic and environmental development of Chaitén, because of the wealth that tourism generates, the possibilities of articulation with other productive activities, and its potential to increase the participation of local population in this activity
Summary
In Chile, as in many other countries in Latin America and in the world, private conservation significantly contributes to national protected areas [1,2,3]. In Chile this tendency towards private conservation has been observed since the beginning of the 1990s These initiatives are carried out by either foreigners or national citizens or non-governmental organizations with different non-profit or for-profit goals, such as biodiversity conservation, bio carbon sequestration, ecosystem services and ecotourism [5]. Over the last three decades, this tendency was facilitated by three factors: (i) the retreat of governmental institutions and the increase of NGOs managing protected areas; (ii) the integration of conservation in market mechanisms as a characteristic of global neoliberal capitalism; and (iii) leading conservation NGOs have developed relationships with corporations copying their methods in areas such as marketing and receiving their donations [7]. Since the 1980s and mainly since the 2000s, NGOs have been cooperating with corporations and have allowed their activities to be viewed
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