Protecting Wilderness or Cultural and Natural Heritage? Insights from Northern Patagonia, Chile

Protecting 30% of the planet’s terrestrial and marine ecosystems by 2030 (30x30) is the most recent call for global conservation action. Toward this end, the creation of protected areas is a central strategy. The various parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have committed to this global goal, including Chile. Against this backdrop, this article explores current narratives and practices around five protected areas in northern Patagonia, Chile. We argue that environmental discourses are key to understanding these narratives and practices. Environmental discourses influence the values central to the creation and development of protected areas, as well as the prevailing management approaches for these areas. Our findings show that two discourses are of particular importance: the ‘Patagonian wilderness’ discourse and the ‘cultural and natural heritage’ discourse. Based on our findings, we also discuss three emerging topics: the rewilding and rebranding of Patagonia, optimism around nature-based tourism, and implementation of global conservation goals within the national context. We reflect on the implications of our findings for further developments in Patagonia and for the global conservation debate. We contend that the future of protected-area management in northern Patagonia will depend on how community-based management initiatives are fostered and argue that aligning with such inclusive conservation approaches will be a critical requirement for the implementation of the 30x30 goal moving forward. Spanish abstract: rb.gy/gmaziq