Art & Culture

Wyland Channeling Environmental Education into Artform

a man is painting whale on a large ship — Laguna Beach artist, Wyland, one of the best-known marine-life painters in the country, recreates the first of his 100 whaling walls on a giant canvas adjacent to his gallery in Laguna Beach on Monday, July 15, 2019, 38 years after he first painted the mural on the Hotel Laguna. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The Wyland Foundation celebrates decades of conservation stewardship

Renowned marine life artist Wyland changed the way people think about our ocean when he started painting life-size whales on the sides of buildings in the 1980s and 1990s. Now, the foundation of the artist founded to promote clean water and healthy oceans approaches rising ocean temperatures with more resolve.

Since 1993, the Wyland Foundation has delivered engaging travelling art with science and community-based programs that promote a greater understanding of the ways people impact the health of the ocean, lakes, rivers, streams, and wetlands.

As part of its annual educational programs, the foundation enlists mayors from coast to coast, National League of Cities, and green businesses to encourage conserving energy, reducing plastic use and saving water. More than 600,000 pledges have been made at mywaterpledge.com with an estimated 2 billion gallons of water saved. Mobile water science education (pre-COVID) educated over 30,000 children about the importance of conservation while donating art supplies to schools in 100 cities. In 2016, the Wyland Foundation launched a new initiative to reduce the impacts on the ocean from land-based activities in partnership with the United Nations Environment program.

a man is painting a whale on the idle of the building — Gregg Hamby, left, and Laguna Beach artist, Wyland, work together to recreate the first of Wyland’s 100 whaling walls on a giant canvas adjacent to his gallery in Laguna Beach on Monday, July 15, 2019, 38 years after he first painted the mural on the Hotel Laguna. Hamby has worked with Wyland for over 20-years and his art director. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

“We started the foundation with a focus on protecting the ocean through the arts,” Wyland said. “But as it became clear that many of the problems we see in the ocean originate upstream, we expanded our mission to address impacts on our vast watersheds. It also became clear that inspiring people through the art, then encouraging them to broaden their understanding through science, would be instrumental to sustaining these critical ecosystems.”

Significant ongoing programs and accomplishments of the foundation include:

100 monumental marine murals in over 17 countries.
An eco-friendly marine-life line of jewellery including pendants in gold, platinum, and silver. Free of lead and nickel, made with recycled metal and natural stones. Hand-crafted in SoCal: https://wylandfoundation.org/product-category/jewelry/. All proceeds directly support the Wyland Foundation‘s annual educational campaigns for clean water and healthy oceans.
The National Mayor’s Challenge for Water Conservation , a nationwide challenge in partnership with Toyota (electric vehicle division) , US EPA, National League of Cities, and the Toro Company, to see which cities can be the most waterwise. To date, the program has encouraged residents to pledge to reduce their water usage by more than 10 billion gallons.
The Wyland Clean Water Mobile Learning Experience, a 1000-square foot interactive science museum on wheels dedicated to promoting a broader understanding of issues affecting our water supply, from pollution to eutrophication. The exhibit has reached over one million people.

The Wyland National Art and Mural Challenge, a national water-themed art competition that encourages students to work individually and collaboratively on art projects with community messages about topical water issues. More than 15,000 students across 45 states have taken part in this annual challenge to use art as a method of exploring the economic, cultural, and aesthetic value of our ocean, lakes, rivers, streams, and wetlands.
Earth Month Heroes is an annual partnership with KCAL-KCBS and the Wyland Foundation that has recognized more than 40 individuals, ranging from teachers to business leaders to scientists, who have made a significant local environmental impact.
Adopt-A-Channel – The foundation has joined the effort to provide annual support to remove marine debris from area storm channels to reduce harmful and polluted runoff.
The Wyland World Water Pledge, in partnership with UN Environment, encourages people everywhere to broaden their understanding of how their local actions can shape our global environment.
Other projects have included “Hands Across the Oceans,” an international art project for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing bringing together children from around the world to celebrate healthy waterways and oceans as a mile-long series of murals. The project was subsequently installed at the U.S. National Mall.

“If Covid has taught us anything, it’s that we can change behaviors for the benefit of everybody,” Wyland said “It’s more important than ever to maintain smart habits that support the health of the world around us — especially when it comes to our water and air.”

The Wyland Foundation is a non-partisan and non-advocacy 501c3 non-profit public charity dedicated to raising environmental awareness about ocean conservation and water quality. For more information, go to wylandfoundation.org.

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Art & Culture

Celebrating World Glaciers & Water Days with Science and Art

UNESCO will celebrate the World Day for Glaciers and the World Water Day at its
Headquarters in Paris on 18-19 March 2026, launching the new Decade of Action for
Cryospheric Sciences (2025-2034) with dedicated sessions and side events including
five outlined in this article that highlight the vital links between cryosphere, water,
climate and social equity.
These days aim to drive forward Sustainable Development Goal 6 (water and sanitation
for all) and promote sustainable, equitable water management during the year America
is celebrating its 250th anniversary—or semiquincentennial.

Havre de Grace Maritime Museum – America at 250 Exhibition

The cryosphere, including glaciers, ice sheets, permafrost, sea ice and snow, stores
around 70% of Earth’s freshwater, yet it is shrinking fast. Glaciers are losing over 273
billion tonnes of ice annually, with significant acceleration in the last decade, severely
impacting global water security, infrastructure, and raising sea levels. Nearly 2–3 billion
people rely on seasonal melt for water, while rising seas threaten 1 billion people in
coastal areas. The cryosphere’s rapid, often irreversible, collapse disrupts ecosystems,
triggers disasters, and accelerates global warming.
The “Glacier Flag” a side event for World Day for Glaciers in Paris created by award
winning artists Alfons Rodriguez and Fatma Kadir that is on exhibit at the America at
250 Art Show hosted by the Havre de Grace Maritime Museum from January 31 too
July 5 th , 2026. It draws attention to strengthening research, monitoring, education and
policy action on cryospheric change.
Sofia Fonseca, the founder of Teiduma explained “This art show is a collective
exhibition, connecting USA’s maritime heritage, environmental consciousness, and
artistic interpretation of flags and landmarked lighthouses in a powerful celebration of
250 years of American history.
The exhibition brings together the work of Alfons Rodríguez alongside an international
group of artists and colleagues: Semine Hazar, Ian Hutton, Fatma Kadir, Maria
Krasnopolsky, Selva Ozelli, Ilhan Sayin, and Mary Tiegree.
The exhibition offers a reflective and visually compelling dialogue on USA’s history,
identity, landscape, and shared futures at this significant milestone.
Alfons Rodríguez‘s contribution, including works from The Melting Age series, situates
environmental awareness on melting glaciers within broader historical and cultural
narratives—reminding us that national anniversaries are also moments to reflect on
responsibility, resilience, and continuity.”

America at 250 at Havre de Grace Maritime Museum

Concord Point Lighthouse by Semine Hazar the second-oldest lighthouse in MD which is located across the street from Havre de Grace Maritime Museum
America at 250 is also host to “Lighthouses” by Semine Hazar and the “Paradise Flag“
by Ian Hutton and Selva Ozelli which are side events for World Water Day in Paris
drawing attention to sustainable water management including groundwater and
freshwater flows.
The Havre de Grace Maritime Museum and its integrated Environmental Center serve
as a hub for both maritime heritage and regional water sustainability efforts. Located at
the confluence of the Susquehanna River and the Chesapeake Bay, the museum
actively promotes environmental stewardship through art exhibitions, citizen science,
habitat restoration, and water quality monitoring. A meet the artists event will be hosted
by the museum on April 25 th .

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University (LDEO) – Where
Science Meets Art

The Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) is a world-renowned research
institution at Columbia University, founded in 1949 to study Earth’s natural systems.
LDEO scientists were among the first to map the seafloor, provide proof for the theory of
plate tectonics, continental drift, and develop a computer model that predicted El Niño
events. LDEO’s research covers everything from formation of the Earth, moon, and
solar system, as well as the movement of carbon and other materials through the Earth
System, including its atmosphere, oceans, and land, using different types of Earth
materials from sediments to cave deposits to tree rings to identify past climate shifts and
changes.
On March 25 th in celebration of World Glaciers and Water Days LDEO’s Interim
Director; Higgins Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences,
Columbia University Dr. Steven L. Goldstein is hosting a public lecture series event
titled:

“Climate and Ice: From Rising Seas to Shrinking Mountain Glaciers”

Professor Joerg M. Schaefer LDEO Geochemistry, Department of Earth and
Environmental Sciences & Columbia Climate School, Columbia University will explore
how fast ice is melting, where it is changing most rapidly, and how we can respond to
these challenges with LDEOs cutting-edge research including Greenland
Rising/Kalaallit Nunaat qaffappoq, a recent National Science Foundation–funded
collaborative project of LDEO, the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources (GINR),
and local Greenland communities that is vital for understanding these shifts and how
applying this science today can help build a safer, more sustainable future.

Time: 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Place: Monell Building, 61 Route 9W, Palisades, NY 10964
[REGISTER HERE]
Phone: (212)853-8861
Email: events@ldeo.columbia.edu

LDEO is also hosting the “Paradise” art show by Ian Hutton and Selva Ozelli and the
“Ocean Lovers – To the Core Flag CCL” by Selva Ozelli that are a side events for World
Water Day in Paris. The Ocean Lovers – To the Core Flag CCL is designed based on
core research by LDEO scientists as follows:

Dr. Dorothy Peteet is a prominent Senior Research Scientist at
the NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies and an Adjunct Professor
at Columbia University who specializes in the paleoecology of wetlands and
lakes. She directs the New Core Lab at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory,
where she utilizes sediment cores to reconstruct past climates and study modern
carbon sequestration; and
Drs William Ryan, Walter Pitman, Petko Dimitrov, and their colleagues who first
proposed that a catastrophic inflow of Mediterranean seawater into the Black
Sea freshwater lake occurred around 7,600 years ago, c. 5600 BCE with, rising
Mediterranean waters breaching the Bosphorus strait, catastrophically flooding a
freshwater lake and creating the modern, salty Black Sea potentially influencing
ancient flood myths. Drs Ryan and Pitman cited submerged shorelines,
preserved dunes, and marine fossils found in deep core samples. While the event
is recognized, the speed and magnitude of the flood are still debated.

Ocean Lovers – To the Core Flag by Selva Ozelli for LDEO

National Lighthouse Museum (NLM)

The National Lighthouse Museum in Staten Island, NY, preserves maritime history at
the former U.S. Lighthouse Service General Depot. It focuses on sustainability through
educating the public on eroding shorelines and “super storms”. The museum promotes
coastal resilience and supports initiatives like the Waterfront Alliance and the Living
Breakwaters project to protect coastal communities.

Aligning with broader goals of World Water Day, on March 4, 2026, NLM will participate
in the Waterfront Alliance City of Water Day kick-off info session (1–2 PM ET) to
discuss this year’s theme centered on expanding the capacity of New York and New
Jersey communities to promote green infrastructure, water quality, and habitat
restoration for resilient, accessible waterfronts that support better water quality for
marine life.

This initiative and NLM’s harbor initiatives such as the March 29, tour of the New York
harbor with Author of over 100 books Bill Miller – Mr. Ocean Liner emphasize protecting
vital coastal and freshwater ecosystems through sustainable practices, fostering climate
resilience, and engaging in community-driven environmental solutions.

NLM is also hosting a meet the artist event titled Lighthouses are for [Ocean] Lovers
and Friends High Tea on March 14 th for the Ocean Lovers – Angel Fish Flag by Selva
Ozelli that is a side event for World Water Day in Paris drawing attention to sustainable
water management.

Ocean Lovers – Angel Fish Flag CCL by Selva Ozelli for NLM

The America at 250 exhibition along with the Flag CCL series of Selva Ozelli has been
endorsed by Freedom 250 which is a national initiative launched by President Donald
Trump to lead the celebration of the 250th anniversary of American independence on
July 4, 2026. It is a public-private partnership aimed at honoring U.S. history, preserving
historic sites, fostering patriotism, and highlighting innovation.

World Water Day Flag CCL Series

Written by: Selva Ozelli

Art & Culture

Sixteen days in Tunisia

*Bab Al-Bhar, the historic Sea Gate of Tunis, once opened directly onto the Mediterranean. Today, white colonial buildings stand where water once lapped at the city walls.*

Tunisia is named after Tunis. Not the other way around. If the country takes its name from the city, then any attempt to understand Tunisia must start in Tunis.

Before reading any further, look at a map. You must appreciate the exceptional location of Tunis; only then does the city make full sense. Historically, Tunis was little more than a compact nucleus pressed in the strip of land between the Séjoumi lagoon (a flamingo sanctuary) and Lake Tunis, once the natural harbour. Everything that now feels expansive, avenues, neighbourhoods, infrastructure, rests on land reclaimed from water. Bab Al-Bhar, the Sea Gate, crystallises this transformation: standing there today, flanked by white buildings, you have to imagine the water once visible straight through the gate. The city quite literally stole land from the sea as it expanded.

That tension between land and water, between natural geography and human intervention, repeats itself everywhere in Tunisia. An artificial peninsula appears in the ancient harbours of Carthage. Salt lakes replace vanished seas in Chott el Djerid. Urban coastlines are pushed back, fortified, paved over. Today, the landscape bears the marks of centuries of negotiation with water, sometimes reverent, sometimes violent. But let’s stay in the capital for a moment.

Visiting the medina (old town) on a Sunday, when most souks are closed, made the architecture audible. Without the commercial noise, proportions, light and texture take over; the business-day buzz is thrilling, but silence teaches you how the city breathes. That quiet also sharpens your attention to thresholds. And then the beauty of the doors hits you. Again and again. Painted, carved, symbolic, they demand to be read, often concealing unexpected worlds behind them. In the medina, access is never guaranteed: museums may still be family homes, so you knock, you wait and someone might let you in. Knowledge survives through generosity. This constant negotiation between private and public space explains why repurposing feels so natural here. People inhabit ancient burial sites, former shrines become cafés and even the old slave market has transformed into the jewellers’ quarter; history reused rather than erased. The twenty madrasas scattered through the medina embody this logic perfectly: still embedded in daily life, neither fully public nor entirely private, their doors test your luck. Finally stepping inside one felt unreal, courtyards opening suddenly, tiled interiors that seemed imagined rather than constructed. I honestly felt I was dreaming.

But don’t forget to look up, as architecture constantly communicates power, belief and belonging, often far more than we initially perceive. The green-tiled domes signalling burial places, the octagonal or patterned motifs minarets proclaiming variants of Islam (Ottoman and Almohad respectively) or the colour codes identifying hammams and barber shops all speak a visual language that locals instinctively read. In Tunis, belief is never private, it is inscribed into skylines and façades.

That inscription extends inward. Mosques feel less like austere institutions than wellness centres, spaces of rest, learning and calm. Mats are placed against ancient columns to shield people’s backs from the cool marble. I even witnessed people nap inside Al-Zaytuna. So much peace that you can sleep. How do churches compare?

*The courtyard of Al-Zaytuna Mosque in Tunis, built in the seventh century with repurposed Roman columns. The Great Mosque remains the spiritual and commercial heart of the medina.*

Al-Zaytuna itself is the city’s anchor, the Great Mosque. The souks grew around it, originally as little more than rented awnings, now covered streets wrapping commerce around devotion. You walk through trade and suddenly stumble into the sacred. Built in the seventh century, shortly after the Islamic conquest of Byzantine Africa, the mosque stands on layers of belief. While it is likely that a temple existed here since antiquity, legend says it was built on the shrine of Saint Olive of Palermo. “Zaytuna” means olive, in Arabic and in Spanish. Language preserves memory even when stones are repurposed. Indeed, the entire prayer hall is held by a forest of Roman columns and capitals, older worlds literally supporting newer ones.

As a Spaniard, Tunisia had many a surprise in store for me. Rue des Andalous reveals one of Tunisia’s most consequential migrations. During the Middle Ages, much of Spain was Muslim. Forced conversions, expulsions and finally the mass expulsion even of Moriscos (former Muslims converted to Christianity) in 1609 drove tens of thousands across the sea. Spain was Al-Andalus in Arabic and so these Spaniards became known as “Andalusians”. Large numbers settled in Tunisia, founding neighbourhoods and entire industries. That legacy is not abstract. Chechias, the characteristic red felt hats associated with Tunisois men, were produced using techniques brought by Andalusian refugees. By the nineteenth century, chechia makers were among the wealthiest and most influential merchants in Tunis. The Tunis souks where you can still watch them work are living archives of forced migration turned cultural inheritance. Indeed, the link with Al-Andalus is still emotionally present. Several people called me “cousin” when I told them I was Spanish. It did not feel metaphorical. It felt familial. Spanish presence resurfaces repeatedly: forts at La Goulette, inscriptions in Castilian, Andalusian refugees founding towns like Testour, where the mosque clock runs backwards (‘anticlockwise’) like Arabic script. Jewish and Muslim Spaniards built whole towns together after fleeing persecution. They brought urban planning, architecture, food and memory.

*The ribat of Monastir, a fortified Islamic monastery, now separated from the Mediterranean by a modern coastal road. The ancient fortress once stood directly on the beach.*

Non-human animals are also everywhere if you know where to look, silently narrating human history. Today, cats dominate Tunis, lounging, glamorous, fully at home in the city. But North Africa was once also home to another feline: lions, ultimately erased from the landscape by hunting. At the Bardo museum, Roman mosaics celebrate them while also depicting their mass slaughter in amphitheatres. Venationes (gladiatorial hunting shows) paved the way to extinction long before modern poaching. Rome’s “games” were ecological disasters disguised as entertainment. El Djem boasts the third largest amphitheatre in the world, an uncomfortable reminder that the spectacle of violence against animals became industrial. Birds, too, mark survival. Storks now nest on electrical poles, thanks to recent conservationist efforts, and the ancient castle on the artificial Chikly island in Lake Tunis is now a natural reserve for over fifty-seven species.

Water management reveals another continuity of power. Ancient Carthage was defined by water engineering. Artificial harbours, commercial and naval, remain legible after 2,200 years. Aqueducts carried water across vast distances; cisterns stored enough to sustain one of the Mediterranean’s largest cities. Fresh water was sacred. Springs, such as that at Zaghouan, were divine. Nymphs were believed to guard the source so temples rose where water emerged from the rock. But human transformations of the landscape sometimes rival natural phenomena. Chott el Djerid, now a salt desert, was once part of the Mediterranean Sea. When geological shifts cut it off, the water evaporated, leaving salt behind. The salt is now actively extracted and shipped north, sold to Scandinavian countries as grit to combat icy roads. At the same time, visions of reversing this desiccation persist, from colonial-era schemes to the revival of the “Sahara Sea” project in the 2010s, approved by the Tunisian state in 2018. Coastlines have also been shaped by humans. Hammamet’s medina once met the waves directly. Boulders and walkways intervened. Monastir’s ribat once stood on the beach before roads severed it from the sea. Sousse’s medina now violently cut away from the Mediterranean. Tunisia has never stopped imagining how to reshape water.

The medina walls of Hammamet meet a rocky breakwater constructed to protect the coastline. Where waves once touched ancient stone, boulders now buffer the historic town from the sea.

A fisherman wades through the ancient Punic harbours of Carthage, still in use after 2,200 years. The artificial basins, once home to Carthaginian naval and merchant fleets, now serve local fishing communities. — The medina walls of Hammamet meet a rocky breakwater constructed to protect the coastline. Where waves once touched ancient stone, boulders now buffer the historic town from the sea.

Just as water and animals shape human settlement, so too does climate. Again and again in Tunisia, habitation reveals extraordinary adaptation to environment. At the ancient site of Bulla Regia, houses were built partly underground to escape heat, flooding interior spaces with light while sheltering them from extremes. At Matmata, troglodyte dwellings carved into the earth have stabilised temperature in a harsh desert landscape for centuries. At Zriba Olia, a town only abandoned decades ago, Amazigh (Berber) architecture merges seamlessly with mountain rock: the house ends, the mountain begins. Even the Roman theatre at Dougga takes perfect advantage of the mountain’s elevation. These are not picturesque oddities; they are intelligent, time-tested responses to landscape. But changes aren’t always benign, especially when colonial brutality is concerned. In Carthage, Roman policy deliberately buried, erased and levelled the Punic past on Byrsa Hill. Centuries later, French authorities turned amphitheatres into chapels, erected cathedrals atop Punic acropolises and even built a farmhouse on the Roman capitol at Oudna. Layers of civilisation were literally crushed to assert dominance. The irony is that archaeology eventually resurrected what imperial ideology tried to annihilate.

An underground villa at Bulla Regia, the ancient Roman city where homes were built below ground level to escape North African heat. Roman columns frame a sunken courtyard still preserving intricate floor mosaics.

A traditional troglodyte dwelling in Matmata, where Amazigh families have carved homes into the earth for centuries. The sunken courtyard design provides natural climate control in Tunisia's arid south. — An underground villa at Bulla Regia, the ancient Roman city where homes were built below ground level to escape North African heat. Roman columns frame a sunken courtyard still preserving intricate floor mosaics.

Language binds all of this astonishing diversity together. Phoenician (Punic) script underpins our Latin alphabet. Tifinagh survives among Amazigh communities. Writing systems are fossils of contact. Even humour reveals linguistic layering: Tunisians seem to have the worst, and best, wordplay, producing gems like “Pub-elle”, “Bar Celone” or “Mec Anic”, jokes cleverly built on French that land perfectly in Tunisian streets. Religion, too, refuses neat boundaries. Phoenician deities merge with Egyptian, Persian and Roman gods. Judaism flourished in North Africa from antiquity and remained deeply rooted in Tunisia until the twentieth century. Christianity arrived early, fractured into multiple denominations and left basilicas, cathedrals and martyrs’ narratives across the landscape. Islam absorbed, adapted and reinterpreted what came before. Syncretism is not the exception here, it is the rule.

By the end, what remains clearest is this: Tunisia is not a palimpsest with erased layers. It is an accumulation where nothing disappears entirely. Former seas leave salt. Empires leave infrastructure. Migrations leave words, recipes, and cousins!

Sixteen days is nothing.
And it was everything.

Written by: Fernando Nieto-Almada

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Fernando read History at university in London and Paris and currently teaches Languages. You can follow him on Instagram here.

Art & Culture

“Patagonia National Park,” Book by Rewilding Chile

Patagonia National Park is one of Chile’s most important ecological restoration or rewilding projects. It consists of the former Tamango and Jeinimeni reserves and the Chacabuco Valley, a sector that was donated by Tompkins Conservation to the State of Chile in 2018 and which was formerly one of the largest cattle ranches in the country.

To highlight and celebrate the work done in the Aysén region, where today the community can enjoy and connect with this protected area, where species and ecosystems are gradually regaining their place, the book “Patagonia National Park” was published.

The book’s photographs and stories are dedicated to the diverse landscapes of Patagonia National Park, encompassing forests, glaciers, and steppe, as well as the park’s wild inhabitants and the efforts being made to recover healthy populations of endangered species such as the huemul, rhea, puma, and Andean condor. Most of the images are by the prominent photographer Linde Waidhofer, while the texts were written by various personalities such as Yvon Chouinard, founder of the outdoor clothing brand Patagonia, a close climbing friend of Douglas Tompkins; environmental figures such as Marcelo Mena, and Juan Pablo Orrego, as well as the words of former president Michelle Bachelet, in the prologue.

In the summer of 1994, while Douglas and Kristine Tompkins were traveling through Patagonia, marveling at the beauty of the Aysén steppe, they camped on the banks of the Chacabuco River: “We imagined that such an extraordinary place should be protected forever; it was like nothing we had ever seen before,” said Kristine, co-founder of Rewilding Chile, at the time. Twelve years later, with the President of the Republic, Michelle Bachelet, she signed the decree to create the Patagonia National Parks Network, a public-private strategic vision of ecosystem conservation, which seeks to promote the economic development of local communities based on responsible nature tourism. At this milestone, the creation of the new Patagonia National Park was also announced.

Today, Kristine Tompkins presents to the community a book that brings together profound reflections with beautiful images of the park, which take you on a journey through this area at different moments in its history and give an account of the efforts made to restore this ecosystem. In its 276 pages, it brings together texts by 18 contributors who talk about the geological history of the park, the human settlement of the valley, the infrastructure developed for public access in the park, the change from a cattle ranch into a national park, its rich wildlife, the restoration actions to restore the park, the history of the park, the history of the park, the history of the park and the efforts made to restore the ecosystem.
The book contributes to the conservation of the ecosystem, among other topics.

For Carolina Morgado, executive director of Rewilding Chile, a legacy foundation of Tompkins Conservation, this book reinforces the concept that national parks are the jewels of a country where everyone is welcome. “With this book, we seek to bring the natural heritage closer to readers from different corners of the planet, to raise awareness about how nature can heal when we give it the space to do so,” concludes Carolina Morgado.

“Con este libro, buscamos acercar el patrimonio natural, a los lectores de diversos rincones del planeta, para generar conciencia sobre cómo la naturaleza puede sanar, cuando le damos el espacio para hacerlo” Carolina Morgado, directora ejecutiva Rewilding Chile

About the park

Patagonia National Park covers 304,000 hectares, where the former Lake Jeinimeni National Reserve and the former Tamango National Reserve were merged with the lands of the Estancia Valle Chacabuco, donated by Tompkins Conservation.

The most important features include the plant formations of the Patagonian steppe of Aysén, which is at its maximum expression in this area. Also noteworthy are the large extensions of Patagonian Andean forests present in the high and foothill sectors associated with bodies of water, which mainly contain three species of the beech genus (Nothofagus): the lenga, the ñire, and the coigüe. Rainfall can reach 200 millimeters a year, producing dense, nutrient-rich forests. These forests are home to 370 types of vascular plants, which are vital to the survival of the surrounding fauna.

Patagonia National Park is home to and protects the highest levels of biodiversity found in Aysén. All of the region’s native species are present, from Andean condors to guanacos and pumas. The park also protects large tracts of habitat for the endangered huemul, an iconic species part of Chile’s national coat of arms.

DOWNLOAD THE BOOK “PATAGONIA NATIONAL PARK”