Inauguration of the Cantalao Precordillera Natural Park

As part of the celebration of World Environmental Education Day, the Cantalao Precordillera Natural Park Environmental Education Center was inaugurated this morning in the commune of Peñalolén. This center is the result of a project that the Ministry of the Environment, through the Environmental Protection Fund (FPA), put out to tender in June 2016, and that the Cosmos Foundation implemented last year, with the ongoing support of the Cordillera Park Association, administrators of the network of pre-urban parks in the Metropolitan Region.

“We are delighted to inaugurate this Center because it will become a living space for environmental education that will provide cultural, artistic, educational, and environmental activities to the public. We hope this center will be enjoyed by the educational communities of the Metropolitan Region and also by families, because it will have first-class infrastructure and because it is located in an area of great natural wealth in the foothills of Santiago,” said Environment Minister Marcelo Mena, who also recognized the work of botanist and environmental educator Adriana Hoffmann, the driving force behind the Cantalao Natural Park.

This new Education Center is located in a site of great ecosystem richness, the foothills of the Andes, considered one of the 23 priority sites for biodiversity conservation in the Metropolitan Region. Its development involved the restoration and renovation of former Army facilities—which own the park land—which are now part of the infrastructure and support spaces for environmental education and comprehensive training for children and adults.

“Through this Education Center, we will be able to further consolidate the environmental education work we have been developing in the various parks that make up our network, to highlight this ecosystem and promote its conservation,” said Felipe Guevara, president of the Cordillera Park Association and mayor of Lo Barnechea, an organization that has been managing and creating natural parks in the Metropolitan Region’s mountain range for 25 years, including Cantalao Natural Park.

In turn, the Cosmos Foundation, through its project director, Felipe Correa, expressed its satisfaction and joy at the completion of the first stage of this Environmental Education Center, “designed specifically to support the requirements of environmental education, that is, to develop educational activities that foster individual and group understanding of the value of the pre-Andean ecosystem in particular, and the environment in general.”

Located in the commune of Peñalolén, its mayor, Carolina Leitao, who is also Vice President of Parque Cordillera, said: “I would like to highlight the importance of this inauguration for the community of Peñalolén, because this project links to and confirms our commune’s commitment to the environment and the protection of the foothills, even more so since Peñalolén has privileged access to the mountains.”

It’s worth remembering that the Cantalao Precordillera Environmental Education Center was originally located here in the mid-2000s, as part of a project led by the NGO Defensores del Bosque Chileno (Defenders of the Chilean Forest) and its director, Adriana Hoffman, and also integrated by the Association of Municipalities Protege, now known as Parque Cordillera.

Some of the structures that had previously belonged to the Army and were converted into the new Environmental Education Center were the former stables, now converted into the Park Administration and Visitor Center; a powder magazine used to store weapons and ammunition, which is currently a multipurpose room for audiovisual activities, workshops, and individual and group work; and a storage shed, now transformed into a covered meeting area. In addition, the Environmental Education Center has a growing and recycling area containing a greenhouse, an organic garden, a recycling center, and a composting center. It also has three viewing platforms, a natural amphitheater, a picnic area, and a central plaza, all with universal access.