National Parks conservation: Fixing trails in Torres del Paine-Patagonia.
During this summer i was working with two foundations as a volunteer in Torres del Paine. The idea was to restore a segment of the W circuit.
After crossing this part of the trail many times and have complained of the quality of infrastructure, I finally had the chance to do something tangible to repair and thereby contribute to the conservation of this wonderful place that i work.
Annie and Natasha are in charge of Torres del Paine Legacy Fund a foundation dedicated to raising funds to finance conservation projects in Torres del Paine park. This is their second season working there and this was one of many projects created.
For February they had planned to fix the segment from Paine Grande to Italiano campsite and they invited me to work one day with another friend that got the transportation, accommodation and feeding too with Ecocamp, a touristic company.
For the work on the trail they had tools and materials to repair wooden walkways, these had to arrive by helicopter and were not on time because of bad weather.
Another foundation called Conservation Volunteers Internacional Programwent with 15 volunteers and two dependents with extensive experience in protected areas in the US and in Patagonia. With the delay of wood, we chose to advance what was possible at that time. That day we were building dikes and stone walls to take away the water from the trail and stop erosion.
Very nice experience to work on this project after having been here many times, finally came an opportunity to help and bring concrete solutions criticism conservation. It was something that was needed long ago and hopefully for the future to continue contributing in the park and other destinations.