The Natural World
With the Andes dwarfing Santiago skyscrapers, nature can’t help but prevail in visitors’ impressions of Chile. Geography students could cover an entire syllabus in this slinky country measuring 4300km long and 200km wide, reaching from the driest desert in the world to the ice-capped south. Stunning in variety, more than half the country’s plant and animal species are found nowhere else on earth. As pressures build for more mining, industry and electricity, conservation remains a key issue.
The Land
Chile’s rugged spine, the Andes, began forming about 60 million years ago. While southern Chile was engulfed by glaciers, northern Chile was submerged below the ocean: hence today the barren north is plastered with pastel salt flats and the south is scored by deep glacially carved lakes, curvaceous moraine hills and awesome glacial valleys.
Still young in geological terms, the Chilean Andes repeatedly top 6000m and thrust as high as 6893m at Ojos del Salado, the second-highest peak in South America and the world’s highest active volcano.
Much like a totem pole, Chile can be split into horizontal chunks. Straddling the Tropic of Capricorn, the Norte Grande (Big North) is dominated by the Atacama Desert, the driest in the world with areas where rainfall has never been recorded. The climate is moderated by the cool Humboldt Current, which parallels the coast. High humidity conjures up a thick blanket of fog known as camanchaca, which condenses on coastal ranges. Coastal cities here hoard scant water from river valleys, subterranean sources and distant stream diversions. The canyons of the precordillera (foothills) lead eastward to the altiplano (high plains) and to high, snowy mountain passes. Further south, Norte Chico (Little North) sees the desert give way to scrub and pockets of forest. Green river valleys that streak from east to west allow for agriculture.
South of the Río Aconcagua begins the fertile heartland of Middle Chile, carpeted with vineyards and agriculture. It is also home to the capital, Santiago (with at least a third of the country’s population), vital ports and the bulk of industry.
Descending south another rung, the Lakes District undulates with green pastureland, temperate rainforest and foothill lakes dominated by snowcapped volcanoes. The region is drenched by high rainfall, most of which dumps between May and September, but no month is excluded. The warm but strong easterly winds here are known as puelches. Winters feature some snow, making border crossings difficult.
The country’s largest island, Isla Grande de Chiloé, hangs off the continent here, exposed to Pacific winds and storms. The smaller islands on its eastern flank make up the archipelago, but there’s no escaping the rain: up to 150 days per year.
The Aisén region features fjords, raging rivers, impenetrable forests and high peaks. The Andes here jog west to meet the Pacific and the vast Campo de Hielo Norte (Northern Ice Field), where 19 major glaciers coalesce, nourished by heavy rain and snow. To the east, mountainous rainforest gives way to barren Patagonia steppe. South America’s deepest lake, the enormous Lago General Carrera, is shared with Argentina.
The Campo de Hielo Sur (southern ice field) walls off access between the Carretera Austral and sprawling Magallanes and Tierra del Fuego. Weather here is exceedingly changeable and winds are brutal. At the foot of the continent, pearly blue glaciers, crinkled fjords, vast ice fields and mountains jumble together before reaching the Strait of Magellan and Tierra del Fuego. The barren eastern pampas stretches through northern Tierra del Fuego, abruptly halting by the Cordillera Darwin.
Wildlife
A bonus to Chile’s glorious scenery is its fascinating wildlife. Bounded by ocean, desert and mountain, the country is home to a unique environment that developed much on its own, creating a number of endemic species.
Animals
Chile’s domestic camelids and their slimmer wild cousins inhabit the northern altiplano. Equally unusual are creatures such as the ñandú (ostrich-like rhea), found in the northern altiplano and southern steppe, and the plump viscacha (a wild relative of the chinchilla) that hides amid the rocks at high altitude.
Though rarely seen, puma still prowl widely through the Andes. Pudú, rare and diminutive deer, hide out in thick forests throughout the south. Even more rare is the huemul deer, an endangered species endemic to Patagonia.
Chile’s long coastline features many marine mammals, including colonies of sea lions and sea otters, as well as fur seals in the south. Playful dolphin pods and whales can be glimpsed, while seafood platters demonstrate the abundance of fish and shellfish.
Birdwatchers will be enthralled. The northern altiplano features interesting birdlife from Andean gulls to giant coots. Large nesting colonies of flamingos speckle highland lakes pink, from the far north down to Torres del Paine. The three species here include the rare James variety (parina chica, in Spanish). Colonies of endangered Humboldt and Magellanic penguins scattered along Chile’s long coastline are another crowd-pleaser seen at Parque Nacional Pingüino de Humboldt, off the northwestern coast of Chiloé and near Punta Arenas. Recently, a colony of king penguins was discovered on Tierra del Fuego.
The legendary Andean condor circles on high mountain updrafts throughout Chile. The ibis, with its loud knocking call, is commonly seen in pastures. The queltehue, with black, white and grey markings, has a loud call used to protect its ground nests – people claim they are better than having a guard dog.
ANDEAN CAMELIDS
For millennia, Andean peoples have relied on the New World camels – the wild guanaco and vicuña, and the domesticated llama and alpaca – for food and fiber.
The delicate guanaco, a slim creature with stick-thin legs and a long, elegant neck, can be found in the far north and south, at elevations from sea level up to 4000m or more. It is most highly concentrated in the plains of Patagonia, including Parque Nacional Torres del Paine. It is less common and flightier in the north, where you’re most likely to get photos of guanaco behinds as they hightail it to a safe distance.
The leggy vicuña is the smallest camelid, with a swan neck and minuscule head. It lives only above 4000m in the puna (Andean highlands) and altiplano (high plains), from south-central Peru to northwestern Argentina. Its fine golden wool was once the exclusive property of Inka kings, but after the Spanish invasion it was hunted mercilessly. In Parque Nacional Lauca and surrounds, conservation programs have brought vicuña back from barely a thousand in 1973 to over 25,000 today.
Many highland communities in northern Chile still depend on domestic llamas and alpacas for their livelihood. The taller, rangier and hardier llama is a pack animal whose relatively coarse wool serves for blankets, ropes and other household goods, and its meat makes good charqui (jerky). It can survive – even thrive – on poor, dry pastures.
The slightly smaller but far shaggier alpaca is not a pack animal. It requires well-watered grasslands to produce the fine wool sold at markets in the north.
Plants
Chile has a wealth of interesting and unique plant life. While few plants can eke out an existence in its northern desert, those that manage it do so by extraordinary means. More than 20 different types of cacti and succulents survive on moisture absorbed from the ocean fog. One of the most impressive varieties is the endangered candelabra cactus, which reaches heights of up to 5m.
The high altiplano is characterized by patchy grassland, spiky scrub stands of queñoa and ground-hugging species like the lime-green llareta, a dense cushiony shrub. The native tamarugo tree once covered large areas of Chile’s northern desert; it digs roots down as far as 15m to find water.
The desert’s biggest surprise comes in years of sudden rainfall in Norte Chico. Delicate wildflowers break through the barren desert crust in a glorious phenomenon called the desierto florido, which showcases rare and endemic species.
From Norte Chico through most of Middle Chile, the native flora consists mostly of shrubs, the glossy leaves of which conserve water during the long dry season. However, pockets of southern beech (the Nothofagus species) cling to the coastal range nourished by the thick ocean fog. Few stands of the grand old endemic Chilean palm exist today; those that remain are best viewed in Parque Nacional La Campana.
Southern Chile boasts one of the largest temperate rainforests in the world. Its northern reaches are classified as Valdivian rainforest, a maze of evergreens, hugged by vines, whose roots are lost under impenetrable thickets of bamboo-like plants. Further south, the Magellanic rainforest has less diversity but hosts several important species. Equally breathtaking is the araucaria forest, home to the araucaria – a grand old pine that can age up to 1000 years. The English name became ‘monkey puzzle,’ since its forbidding foliage and jigsaw-like bark would surely stump a monkey.
Meanwhile, in the southern lakes region, the alerce is one of the longest-living trees in the world, growing for up to 4000 years. You can admire them in Parque Nacional Alerce Andino and Parque Pumalín.
On Chiloé, in the Lakes District and Aisén, the rhubarb-like nalca is the world’s largest herbaceous plant, with enormous leaves that grow from a single stalk; the juicy stalk of younger plants is edible in November.
The Archipiélago Juan Fernández is a major storehouse of biological diversity: of the 140 native plant species found on the islands, 101 are endemic.
IN DEFENSE OF THE BIG GUYS
The largest animal in the world came perilously close to extinction just a few decades ago. So it was with great excitement in 2003 that what seems to be a blue whale ‘nursery’ was discovered in sheltered fjords just southeast of Chiloé in the Golfo de Corcovado. More than 100 whales gathered here to feed, including 11 mothers with their young.
In 2008 Chile banned whale hunting off the entire length of its coast. Then in early 2014, the Chilean government created the 120,000-hectare marine sanctuary of Área Marina Costera Protegida de Tic Toc, to help recover declining populations of marine wildlife. In 2017, Chile added two new marine parks that preserve an area the size of France, one surrounding the Archipiélago Juan Fernández and the other off Cape Horn. For conservation information, try the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (www.wdcs.org).
Whale-watching is increasingly popular in Patagonia. A variety of species can be spotted, including fin, humpback, killer and sperm whales. Current hubs for Patagonian whale-watching trips include the coastal village of Raúl Marín Balmaceda, and, in Argentina, Puerto Madryn.
Environmental Issues
With industry booming, Chile is facing a spate of environmental issues. Along with Mexico City and São Paulo, Santiago is one of the Americas’ most polluted cities. The smog blanket is at times so severe that people sport surgical face masks, schools suspend sports activities and the elderly are advised to stay indoors. The city has no-drive days for private cars and is looking to add bike lanes and extend subway lines. As a result, the country is investing US$1 billion in Santiago Breathes, a program to decrease global emissions of particulates by 60%. In the south, where wood stoves are the most common form of heating, new incentives promote converting to pellet-based or paraffin stoves to lower emissions.
Water and air pollution caused by the mining industry is a longtime concern. Some mining towns have suffered such severe contamination that they have been relocated. Part of the problem is that the industry also demands huge energy and water supplies, and mining locations can interfere with water basins, contaminating the supply and destroying farming. Unusually high rates of cancer around mining centers are not uncommon. According to a research report by BMI, Chile’s environmental regulatory body has been cracking down on water mismanagement by mining operations, with charges against Antofagasta Minerals’ Los Pelambres copper mine and Kinross Gold’s Maricunga gold mine effectively being suspended in 2016.
In 2017, Chile experienced the worst wildfires in its history, losing 200,000 hectares of forest and killing 11 people. Some attribute the extent of wildfires to the deregulation of the forestry industry under the Pinochet regime. With global warming, forests throughout the country are deemed at risk. Chile’s forests continue to lose ground to plantations of fast-growing exotics, such as eucalyptus and Monterey pine. Caught in a tug-of-war between their economic and ecological value, native tree species have also declined precipitously due to logging.
Another issue is the intensive use of agricultural chemicals and pesticides to promote Chile’s flourishing fruit exports, which during the southern summer furnish the northern hemisphere with fresh produce. In 2011, the Chilean government approved the registration of genetically modified seeds, opening the door for the controversial multinational Monsanto to shape the future of Chilean agriculture. Likewise, industrial waste is a huge problem.
Chile is the world’s second-largest producer of salmon. The continued expansion of salmon farms in southern Chile is polluting water, devastating underwater ecology and depleting other fish stocks. In 2016, the industry lost US$800 million due to an algae bloom, which also killed off other sea life, and viral infections in fish. A study published by Oxford University Press notes that the use of antibiotics has created antibiotic-resistant bacteria in fish and polluted fish-farming environments in Chile.
Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is under mounting pressure from increasing visitor numbers. Limited natural resources mean that the island must depend on the distant mainland for all supplies and fuel. In good news, one of the world’s largest marine reserves was created off the coast of Easter Island in 2017. The Rapa Nui Rahui Marine Protected Area is home to 140 species found nowhere else.
The protection of marine ecosystems is a big issue. In 2015, the largest stranding of whales in history saw 343 individuals, likely Sei whales, beached in Patagonian waters. Scientists attributed the deaths to a toxic species of marine algae. These events are broadly connected to rising ocean temperatures.
The growing hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica has become such an issue that medical authorities recommend wearing protective clothing and heavy sunblock to avoid cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation, particularly in Patagonia.
Global warming is also having a significant impact on Chile. Nowhere is it more apparent than with the melting of glaciers. Scientists have documented many glaciers doubling their thinning rates in recent years while the northern and southern ice fields continue to retreat. In particular, the Northern Patagonian Ice Field is contributing to rising ocean levels at a rate one-quarter higher than formerly believed. Reports say that glaciers are thinning more rapidly than can be explained by warmer air temperatures and decreased precipitation. The change also stands to impact plant and animal life, water levels in lakes and rivers, and overall sustainability.
SALMON INDUSTRY SETBACKS
Salmon was first imported to Chile about a century ago. It wasn’t until the mid-1980s that salmon farming in submerged cages was developed on a massive scale. Nowadays, Chile is the world’s second-largest producer of salmon, right on the tail of Norway. Puerto Montt is the epicenter of the farming and exportation industry, where, in the late 2000s, billions of dollars in investment were pushing the farming operations further south into Patagonia as far as the Strait of Magellan and the industry was expected to double in size and growth by 2020, overtaking Norway. By 2006 salmon was Chile’s third-largest export (behind copper and molybdenum) and the future looked endlessly bright. Then the bottom dropped out.
Coupled with the global recession, Chile’s salmon industry was hit hard with a sudden outbreak of Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA), first detected in 2007 at a Norwegian-owned farm, with disastrous consequences. Between 2005 and 2010, annual Atlantic salmon production dropped from 400,000 to 100,000 tonnes; 26,000 jobs in Puerto Montt and around were lost (along with US$5 billion) and many players in the salmon service industry went bankrupt. Chile found itself in complete salmon panic – an increase in crime in Puerto Montt and the doubling of suicide rates didn’t help matters. But there had been signs. Veritable mountains of organic waste from extra food and salmon feces had led to substantial contamination and depletion of other types of fish; and sanitation issues and pen overcrowding were serious industry concerns for many years.
Environmentalists, including the environmental organization Oceana (
%2-2925-5600; www.oceana.org; Av Suecia 0155, Providencia; 
mLos Leones), and the late Doug Tompkins, founder of Parque Nacional Pumalín, expressed their concerns about the negative effects of the salmon industry directly to the Chilean government. Fundación Terram, which closely monitors the industry, has published reports over a range of topics from working conditions to environmental damage.
By 2012 salmon began making a comeback, mainly thanks to an insatiable emerging market in Brazil, which temporarily overtook the USA to become the world’s second-largest global consumer of farmed Chilean salmon behind Japan in 2010. By 2014, salmon had fully rebounded, overtaking molybdenum to become Chile’s second-largest export by value and topping US$4 billion in sales, mainly thanks to now realigned appetites in the United States, Japan and Brazil. But in 2016, red algae wiped out one-fifth of Chile’s salmon production – environmentalists blamed it on waste emissions from fish farms.
Though the crisis is behind it, the concerns are not. The Servicio Nacional de Pesca y Acuicultura (Sernapesca), Chile’s government aquaculture watchdog and compliance agency, has found that the Chilean salmon industry uses more antibiotics than any other country (an astonishing 557 tonnes in 2015 – some seven times higher than Norway and a record high on a per-fish basis). Among them are quinolones, a family of antibiotics that are not approved for use in aquaculture in the USA and elsewhere due to their negative effect on the human immune system. By 2017, as stated in a report by SalmonChile (www.salmonchile.cl), the industry’s trade association, all Chilean farms working together claimed a 30% reduction in antibiotic use – but there are skeptics.
As an aside, it should be noted that all the quality salmon in Chile is exported, so if it’s on menus in the country, it’s probably one of two scenarios: it’s downgraded (ie defective or not fit for export) or ‘wild,’ which really just means it has escaped from a farm (or was spawned from an escaped bloodline).
¡Buen provecho!
Environmental Organizations
Chile’s environmental organizations include the following.
Codeff (Comité Pro Defensa de la Fauna y Flora; %2-2777-2534; www.codeff.cl; Sara del Campo 570, Santiago; 
#) Campaigns to protect the country’s flora and fauna, especially endangered species. Trips, seminars and work projects are organized for volunteers.
Fundación Terram (%2-2269-4499; www.terram.cl; Bustamonte 24, Providencia, Santiago; mBaquedano) A hard-hitting environmental activist group.
Greenpeace Chile (%2-2634-2120; www.greenpeace.cl; Agromedo 50, Centro, Santiago) Focuses on forest conservation, ocean ecology and dealing with toxic waste.
WWF (%63-227-2100; www.wwf.cl; General Lagos 1355, Valdivia) Involved with the preservation of the temperate rainforests around Valdivia, conservation in southern Patagonia and protection of native wildlife and oceans.
THE DISAPPEARING LAKE
In April 2008, Lago Cachet 2 lost its 200 million cu meters of water in just a matter of hours, releasing water downstream to the Baker, Chile’s highest-volume river and generating a downstream wave that rolled on out to the Pacific. In nature, strange things happen. But following this mysterious one, the event repeated a total of seven times in two years.
According to Nature magazine, the cause is climate change. Called a glacial-lake outburst flood (GLOF), it results from the thinning and receding of nearby Patagonian glaciers, weakening the natural dam made by the glaciers. After the lake drains, it fills again with glacial melt. It’s a constant threat to those who live on the banks of the Río Colonia, though with assistance from NASA and a German university, monitoring systems are now in place.