Ecotourism in Patagonia Chile - Huequi Peninsula

The Community

The economy of the communities of the Huequi's Peninsula and the fjords close to the Pumalín Park has traditionally revolved around fishing, gathering of seaweed and seafood, and the agriculture and cattle rising of subsistence. The lands of low agricultural productivity and the difficulties to make new grasslands, make the precarious local economy difficult, granted that the mountainous geography prevents it, only some coastal borders of this territory can be inhabited.

It is necessary to add the limitations of access to cities and populated centers, aspect that rises the price of the agriculture's products and cattle raising, not being profitable to local communities to sell them in the urban centers. In the same way the middlemen that buy the products do it to laughable prices.

 
The new threats

The fast expansion of the salmon net industry in the region has also arrived up to here, until now free of these centers of culture.

It is a very aggressive industry with the envirorment, highly contaminating, situation stressed by the lack of an effective legislation and for the influence that they show off like big corporations.

Its influence is also significant in the economic and cultural aspect. Even though it is certain that they generate some jobs, its explosive growth make that communities abandon ancestral forms of cultural and cost-reducing life, selling his better lands to these companies or abandoning the agriculture, cattle raising and community forms of collective cohabitation. A practical example of this is the option to buy the chicken or the vegetables from the big centers of production and not to produce them as it happens traditionally.

Ecotourism or Responsible Tourism. An alternative for our local communities.

The enormous natural and landscaping patrimony of the Peninsula of Huequi, and fiords and bordering canals, the great variety of flora and fauna of the Patagonia, the last pristine tempered forests of the planet, united to life and local cultures, they make of this, a surprising destination, unique and not massive for the lovers of nature and calm, next to a kind receptive and friendly community.

This is El Avellano Lodge's spirit an initiative of a local family that wants to go incorporating step by step to its community to this project. In principle they complement our services with: local guides, lease of horses, sea kayaks and boats property of the neighbors of Huequi and Poyo. Also the service of typical foods from peasant families' of Buill, Reldehue, Huequi and Poyo.

The growth of our project has been very slow but sharp by virtue of the difficult access and the scarce necessary resources for promotion. We are still far from that point that the low impact tourism be an alternative of subsistence for our communities, we trust that the growing interest for these sanctuaries go up to us.
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