Viva Chile!

We began our final full day of activities headed for a tour of Jaime's company Arauco on the outskirts of Valdivia. Jaime linked up with the manager of the Los Castanos nursery, Jaime Buchner and Claudia Alvarez an administrator working for Forestal Valdivia, one of the companies of the Arauco holding. The manager explained to us that the facility produced about 10 million plants per year. The majority of plants were composed of Pinus radiata (7 million) and Eucalyptus nitens(3 million). They also grow about 100,000 native plants per year mainly of the Nothofagus genus. None of the plants are sold. They are used within the company for restoration projects of their native forests land and given out as donations to educational institutions or the surrounding community.

The manager explained how Validivia had a unique growing period that gave it a special extended advantage in the growing season. For more than 30 years, Arauco is working on developing the genetics of P. radiata for increased volume and E. nitens for better wood properties when pulping. They also are producing the hybrid between two different Eucalyptus species: E.nitens as a female pollinated by E.globulus as the male. One species (E.globulus) has better form and rooting, but the other (E.nitens) is more resistant to frost and cold temperatures.








We took a quick break for some breakfast provided by Arauco consisting of a delicious cake, empanadas, tea, coffee, and orange juice. Claudia then began to give a presentation about the organizational structure of the company. The plant nursery is composed of 3 forest engineers, 2 technicians, and about 70 laborers. She said that Arauco has plant locations in Temuco, Loncoche, Los Lagos, Mariquina, Valdivia, Osorno, and a research center called Bioforest in Concepcion (where Jaime works). We learned that the forestry sector is second only to mining in economic production in Chile.

We were treated to a really cool first hand look at a graft of adultbranches of an Eucalyptus nitens selected genotype, in order to propagate it and speed the flowering of this family. By grafting one onto a seedling of the other you get the best of both worlds. The woman who conducted the graft completed the entire process in less than five minutes finishing it up by applying an anti-fungus paste onto the cut pieces of the plant.

Our tour was pleasantly harassed by numerous flocks of birds in the sky singing while our hosts tried to compete for vocal superiority. We finished the tour by visiting their Pudu reserve. The pudu is the world's smallest deer and native to Chile. It’s an endangered species and this nursery is trying to do a conservation effort for this endemic animal.

We continued our day by traveling to the beach just outside of Valdivia where we met up with Mauro to watch numerous bird species congregate on beautiful rock outcroppings. The view was surreal and the sheer number of birds was bewildering. It was a great touch to the last day of the trip. There was even an alone cow feeding on sea kelp on the beach amongst a huge flock of sea gulls that Teisha found.



The final scheduled event on our trip was a speech by Antonio Lara the Dean of the Faculty of Forest Sciences at the University of Austral in Valdivia. The topic of his speech was on "The growing significance of conservation: The Chilean Experience." He was a very engaging and laid back speaker who covered topics of biodiversity, ecosystem services, the progress of the private sector/ NGOs/ public sector, policy advancements, as well as future challenges for the people of Chile. The speech was very informative and was followed up by a social with Pablo and others from earlier in the week.




We topped off the night with dinner at La Parrilla de Thor (the grill of Thor) an Argentinian restaraunt with sizable portions of meat (the picture above is a half serving of the smallest steak) The food was good and we all left full and content on a good week in Chile.

Thank you to all of the hosts and friends we made on our trip and for the faculty and TA's for providing us with this wonderful experience. Also, thank you to the College of Natural Resources for providing funding for us to travel to Chile.

Viva Chile!

Jaime´s favorite tree is the Alerce

True to form, we started our day off at 7:30 because we had to catch the 8:00am ferry ¨Don Fernando¨ to head to La Reserva Costera Valdiviana. This reserve is a collaboration between The Nature Conservancy, The World Wildlife Fund, and the Chaihuin community. Upon arrival at the reserve, we were given a presentation by Damilo, who has been the park guard for 3 1/2 years. He talked about how the forestry in the area started in 1850, which has subsequently caused loss of some species and the community was beginning to worry about losing the Alerce trees. The main reason for international conservation´s concern about this area was due to a loss of species due to land conversion to plantations. In November 2003, all of the aforementioned international groups and the community purchased the land to create a reserve. La Reserva Costera Valdiviana encompasses 60,000 hectares and the creation of this area has changed the mindset of the local community towards that of conservation. The main point of the reserve is to support the scientific community. Only people of the nearby town can be used as guides, so this also supports community involvement and tourism.
Christian Little, a doctoral candidate and forest engineer from the Univeristy of Austral spoke next. He discussed the idea that reduction of precipitation and change in land cover will ultimately change the drinking water yield.
In his study, he found less precipitation changes and percentage of run off resulted in less water changes in native forests. After his presentation, we went out into the forest to look at his field sites firsthand. He created weirs to check how much water is flowing out of the weir at a given stage.

Afterwards, we got to see some huge Alerce trees that were at least 2000 years old!
As the onceler once said, "those trees, those trees, those Truffula trees, all my life I´ve been searching for trees such as these". Unlike the Onceler, our intentions were to view the Alerce trees not harvest them. These magnificent trees that are lifetimes old and have survived so much. Although Will insisted he´d seen bigger, they impressed us all.
We reloaded the bus to catch the ferry and Michelle asked Jaime what his favorite tree was. Forgetting himself, Jaime answered the Alerce. Where all week we´ve been hearing "Viva Radiata Pine". At least today, we would not have gotten an argument when we say,
"Viva Alerce!"

Ciao,
Blake and Katie

Community Based Conservation in the Llancahue Watershed

Today we learned about community based conservation in the Llancahue watershed. The Universidad Austral de Chile is working with the local community of Lomas del Sol to promote the stewardship of ecosystems and to provide income for the local people.




Llancahue is the watershed for 80% of Valdivia´s water supply, but has been experiencing declining rainfall in the past 30 years. Llancahue is 1300 hectares and is the closest native forest to Valdivia, which is convenient because one of the Valdivia Province´s development goals is eco-tourism. Currently, a tourist in Valdivia must travel to 40 minutes to Parque Oncol to visit native forest. The Universidad Austral de Chile recently acquired ownership of the watershed. When the local community of 23 families learned of the ownership change, the rate of high-grading in the watershed increased dramatically. Llancahue was their source of livelihood and they feared what the new owner would restrict.




The university invested time into getting to know the community and learn what their needs were in order to manage Llancahue with the community. Now, only one family remains uncooperative with the watershed management plan. One park guard is employed and is being trained on proper tree marking techniques. Six pairs of men from the community operate in the woods to produce firewood, which is in the process of becoming certified firewood under Sistema Nacional de Certification de Lena. Each two man team is paid a salary based on a production limit of 150 cubic meters of firewood per 15 days or 300 cubic meters per month during the summer. Each team is paid 300,000 Chilean pesos per month, which is about $600 US. Pablo Donoso (Professor, UACH) says this is a very good salary; better than they could make selling the wood illegally, and at the university´s production limit, they do not have to work the forest every day, therefore allowing them to find other work as well to supplement their income.

Jenny Romero, who works with Agrupacion de Ingenieros Forestales por el Bosque Nativo, discussed the importance of certified fuelwood in Chile. A majority of the fuelwood used for energy is currently obtained through illegal operations. There is a need for the expansion of the wood certification system to increase efficiency of fuelwood, improve marketing of certified fuelwood, and to decrease pollution by using wood with lower moisture content.

We also had numerous encounters with leeches slithering up our pantalones in Llancahue. Many members of the group had their first leech experience and got plenty practice removing the little grubby bloodsuckers from their skin. Don't worry, pictures of wounds to come!

la paz,
Jenny and Diane

El Bosque Nativo

We had an asado at our hostel, which is a traditional social event as well as way of cooking meat above a fire. The meat was slow cooked on the grill, taking around four hours to brown. The power went out so we cooked and ate in the light of our headlamps and flashlghts. Please see photos below for a glimpse of the festivities!



Preparing the meat for the asado.


Will, Blake, and Katie on the roof of the hostel.



Ian and Jenny eating with students from the University of Chile, Austral.

The pictures below are some shots of us lounging around the hostel.

Pucon and Parque Nacional Villarrica

Today we were supposed to get a start on our festivities at 8am, but we were a
little late. Nate felt a mouse in his bed last night crawling on his
shoulder, but could not find it after jumping up and flicking the lights
(filthy creatures). We had a hearty breakfast consisting of bread, honey,
marmalade, granola, and durazno (peaches).



We left from Pucon for the Parque Nacional Villarrica (Villarrica National Park) which is located in south central Chile, near the border of Argentina. The park is known for the Araucaria and Northofagos forests. Dr. Mauro Gonzales, a Professor at the University of Chile Austral, was our guide for the day. Dr. Gonzales did his Phd research in the area of forest dynamics and fire history of Araucaria-Nothofagus forests and he is quite the expert.

Auracaria Tree


The bus drove along the national road to Argentina and through the Mahuil Malal (Corral of horses) Pass. The pass was named because Chilean´s used to steal Argentinian horses and sneak them through the best pass in the Andean mountains en route back to Chile. The Picon Mountains of the area are translated as “the combs” because the peaks are aligned like a comb. We stopped by an outpost that previously served as the border between Argentina and Chile until Chile acquired it.

We disembarked from the bus at “Tears of the Lake" and were greeted by magnificent Auracaria trees that are national monuments for Chilean´s. The leaves are coarse and needle-like. Parrots flew in the treetops eating the seeds of the cones in the canopies of the giant trees. Walking wasps were ornately colored black with orange stripes hunting on the ground. Before the road to the lake was built, a ferry was needed to cross the body of water. Despite being a national park, the land is still grazed by livestock since rural people dispute land claims. The trails contained a type of wild strawberry that was small, but sweet and delicious. 600 years ago the land was burned for grazing to create more area for livestock to feed and has been burned during the last 100 years due to human settlement. Many of the mature trees can be traced to this time period.

After three hours we eventually reached the black sand beach of Lake Huinfica and were treated to a sublime vista. A bluish glass lake with white driftwood surrounded by forested mountains and topped off by the glaciated Lanin volcano was visible. The water was crystal clear and freezing, but of course that didn´t stop Michelle from diving in.



After the hike we returned to Pucon for an early dinner and dessert. Dr. Gonzales recommended Spezialitaten, an artisanal ice cream shop, that blends local fruit into cream with sugar. It was absolutely delicious.

When we returned to our hostel in Valdivia, Ian and Nate were in for a nice surprise. Their luggage, which had been lost on the flight down, was waiting for them. This was great news since they had been wearing the same clothes for the past five days. Also, Jaime has returned from his trip home and we are glad to have the native Chilean with us again! Please see picture of Jaime below.

Adios,

Nate and Diane

Day of the Angry Cow

As we sat down to start this blog after a strenuous day of hiking, we managed to freeze the mouse within a minute of opening up the internet. Once we got the mouse working again, at around 11:20 PM there was an earthquake. First of all, some of our class members experienced it and some did not... we are not sure how they missed it, but they did. ¨"woops!"-Diane Cooper

For those of you who have never experienced an earthquake (listen up Diane and Jenny), what you feel before it even happens is that you get dizzy and you feel nauseous. I was sitting on the floor as Blake was typing and we looked at each other and were pretty confused. The hostel seemed to be shifting too and fro, Will described it as ¨A massage from Mother Earth.¨ We only confirmed that it was an actual earthquake because the hanging plant was swinging too and fro along with the house. There you have it, an earthquake to end the day, but all´s well that end´s well. Now let´s start at the beginning...

Jaime departed Valdivia for his village in South Central Chile, which was devestated by the earthquake, with the donations we collected. The rest of us (with Fernando) piled onto the bus bright eyed and bushy tailed. After 2 hours, the volcan Villarrica came into view and we had reached the Andes mountains. We made it to Pucon, and headed out to the parque Cañi reserve just before lunch. There, we met Manuel and Roberto, who are administrators of the park and served as our guides during today´s hike.



The Cañi reserve is owned by the foundacion Lahuen and was created in 2000 to protect the forests of Aracaria and Coihue trees. Cañi is a Mapuche word that loosely translates to ¨place that transforms¨. The reserve encompasses 500 hectares and has 12 small lakes. Our hike today took us through the reserve on a steep hike uphill (and downhill!) into these forests. The reserve is on a volcano, that with other volcanoes and mountains form a caldera.


We walked through an old Coihue stand, which included some of the species that were upwards of 500 years old.


At 600 meters, there was a transition into a different forest due to the altitude. Lingue trees only grow above 800 meters.



After our hike uphill, we arrived at Laguna Seca which is a wetland that remains wet year round. The previous owner drained this area for production of rice and other crops. While taking a break near Laguna Seca, we saw a small herd of cows and ranchers with dogs. Cow numbers in the reserve had escalated to a population of 300 but now, due to significant fencing and cooperation from the local communities, the cow population has been reduced to 30.

Here is where we encountered the "Angry Cow." On the last 10 minutes of our hike to the Laguna Seca, we kept hearing a crazy sound, part wolf, part T-Rex and part cry of some animal that at that point was unknown. Once we reached the lake and saw the herd of cows that were already grazing, we began to think that this horrifying noise was coming from a cow. To our amusement this cow came ambling towards us crying, followed by a rancher chasing him with a machete, trying to corral him to who knows where. For the half an hour that we were at the lake we watched and listened to this screaming cow run away from his rancher all around the lake. He fought with the rancher´s dogs, and the ranchers. By the end, the ranchers gave up on the cow, leaving him to cool off before trying to corral him again.

After the amusement of the cow, it was time to head back down the mountain and get back on the bus. Exhausted, we all drifted off to sleep in the bus on the way to the thermal springs. You heard us right, thermal springs. After a 9 km hike taking us 5 hours, we were all ready for the thermal springs. There was a hot, a hotter and a hottest pool and the river (which was not hot at all)! It was glorious. Then we headed back to the hostel in Pucon for dinner.


Ciao,
Blake and Katie

Riverboat Tour

We spent the afternoon aboard the Katherine II, touring Rio Valdivia, Rio Calle-Calle and Rio Cruces, circumnavigating Isla Teja, so-named for a brick factory on the island. The island is now home to Universidad Austral´s botanical garden.

Surrounding wetlands formed in 1960 after a magnitude 9.5 earthquake and subsequent tsunami. The state preserved 18,000 acres of wetland in 1972. It provides important habitat for the black-necked swan, which was nearly extinct here by 2003 due to pulp mill pollution that killed its primary food source: algae.

Eucalyptus plantation lines much of the route but eventually gives way to state-owned natural forest.