Puchegüín (Chile)

Image courtesy of Rodrigo Condeza

In 2025, the Wyss Foundation awarded The Nature Conservancy a $15,000,000 grant to support the acquisition and long-term conservation of Fundo Puchegüín, a landscape of more than 328,000 acres in northern Chilean Patagonia. The property is now owned and managed by Fundación Conserva Puchegüín, a Chilean foundation established by project partners Puelo Patagonia, Freyja Foundation, and The Nature Conservancy.

Conserving Fundo Puchegüín

Fundo Puchegüín encompasses native temperate rainforest, dramatic granite domes and walls, glacier-fed lakes, and free-flowing rivers in northern Chilean Patagonia. Over the coming years, Fundación Conserva Puchegüín and its partners will establish a new national park on at least eighty percent of the property, with the remaining area managed as a multiple-use conservation landscape that supports sustainable community development and traditional land uses.

Together, these protected areas will help fill critical gaps in one of Latin America's largest biological corridors, spanning more than four million acres across Chile and Argentina.

Conservation Project Success

This land conservation project was made possible through the work of grantee The Nature Conservancy, in partnership with Fundación Conserva Puchegüín, Puelo Patagonia, and Freyja Foundation.