Battered by the winds and currents of the Strait of Magellan, Cape Froward is at the centre of a project that will lead to the creation of a new Chilean national park. The government is completing procedures to establish a protected area of about 150,000 hectares on the headland at the southern end of the Brunswick Peninsula, one of the most remote and least man-made areas of Patagonia.
The future Cape Froward National Park will include subantarctic forests, peatlands, glaciers , and coastal environments that directly overlook the Strait. A set of interconnected and particularly vulnerable ecosystems under increasing pressures related to industrial activities and expanding tourism. “The Brunswick Peninsula is a mosaic of marine, coastal and terrestrial ecosystems,” Benjamín Cáceres, wildlife coordinator of Rewilding Chile-a foundation created by philanthropist and North Face founder Douglas Tompkins-told Reuters, stressing the need to regulate human intervention to avoid damage to natural balances.
A refuge for wildlife
Cape Froward is home to the southernmost continental population of the huemul, Chile’s iconic deer now endangered. The surrounding waters support a rich marine food chain that includes whales, sea lions and orcas, making the area also strategic from an ocean biodiversity perspective. According to Cáceres, these are environments capable of maintaining an ecological balance that provides refuge for threatened species.
The project is supported by a significant donation of private land. In November Rewilding Chile transferred about 127,000 hectares to the Chilean state, making it a condition that the park be established within two years. An additional 33,810 hectares in the Puerto Gallant area south of the peninsula will be added to this base, making Cape Froward the country’s southernmost continental national park.
Between environmental protection and land
Puerto Gallant is one of the historic anchorages for vessels crossing the western mouth of the Strait of Magellan and is part of the ancestral territory of the Kawésqar, a Native American tribe from South America. Over time the area has been affected by artisanal fishing, the whaling industry and timber exploitation, leaving marks still visible in the landscape.
Along with the institutional process, programmes for native forest restoration, wildlife monitoring and marine expeditions dedicated to collecting data on biodiversity and extensive macroalgae forests are already underway. Preparatory work that aims to build science-based management.
According to project coordinator Gabriela Garrido, the establishment decree could be finalised in the coming months. The new park would thus fit into a biological corridor of about 8 million hectares in Patagonia, which includes Kawesqar and Alberto de Agostini national parks.
Cape Froward will also be the first national park located within the municipality of Punta Arenas. Therefore, as Carolina Morgado, director of the Rewilding project, explained, the goal is to combine environmental protection and local economic development through light infrastructure, trails and camping areas designed for regulated tourism compatible with an environment that is both extreme and fragile.
