Keywords

1.1 Geographic Context for “Tourism and Conservation-Based Development in the Periphery: Lessons from Patagonia for a Rapidly Changing World”

This chapter offers an introduction to the collection of peer-reviewed essays and research projects presented within this book, Tourism and conservation-based development in the periphery: Lessons from Patagonia for a rapidly changing world. We would like to begin by clarifying some essential aspects of Patagonia, which is an imagined territory with boundaries that are subject to ongoing interpretation and dispute. Although humans have inhabited the remote, peripheral region of Patagonia since approximately 13,000 BP (Borrero et al. 2019), this isolated, peripheral zone in southern South America was essentially undeveloped with no fixed political borders until the last few centuries.

Patagonia represents the last region of the Americas to be settled by humans. Due to dramatic differences in the geographic and environmental characteristics of the territory, it was likely settled in a dispersed manner, through a complex spatial-temporal ranking (Borrero and Franco 1997). The earliest human settlement sites in Patagonia are located within the Santa Cruz Province of Argentina, along the central plateau. Sites along the Andes in western Chilean Patagonia developed much later (Méndez 2013; Méndez et al. 2018). Perhaps, these patterns resulted from glacial retreat by the end of the last ice age, which determined the timeframe for the formation of viable ecosystems to support biodiversity and human life (Méndez et al. 2018).

This relatively recent peopling defines the region as one of the most recently developed territories for human–nonhuman interactions and as such, an extremely interesting part of the world in which to work and live. Today, Patagonia is generally accepted as encompassing the southernmost regions of South America, from around the 38° latitude south to 56° latitude south. The limits of what is, and what is not Patagonia, continue to evolve through a series of social and political iterations that are subject to ongoing interpretation and dispute (Carte and Zunino 2022; Navarro Floria 2007; Warren 2013). This book does not attempt to define the limits of Patagonia, nor to posit an argument for how that should occur. Nevertheless, for the purposes of orienting the works contained in this book within the Patagonian geographic imaginary, we have chosen an interpretation of how Patagonia is often defined in contemporary conversations and debates (Fig. 1.1). Today, the eastern and western divisions of Patagonia are clearer as a result of ongoing geopolitical processes of border definition that use the southern Andes’ continental divide, and the flow of rivers to the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, to mark the Chilean– Argentine border. This same border defines eastern and western Patagonia.

Fig. 1.1
A map of the southern part of South America with the whole map of South America inset. It covers Chile and Argentina. It features population centers and study coverage with high and low-density color codes.

Geographic dispersion of the research presented in this book

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Figure 1.1 divides contemporary Patagonia into three imaginary zones: north, central, and south (black dashed lines). In accordance, northern Patagonia would extend from 38° latitude south to 42° latitude south, including the Argentine provinces of Río Negro and Neuquén, most of the Chilean Araucanía Region and most of the Los Lagos Region, to Hornopirén. Central Patagonia would extend from 42° latitude south to 46° latitude south, encompassing the Argentine province of Chubut and Chilean territory within the southern reaches of the Los Lagos Region, south from Hornopirén through the northern parts of the Aysén Region, including the Coyhaique Commune. Southern Patagonia would extend from 46° latitude south to 56° latitude south to the continental border of South America. In Argentina, this would include the province of Santa Cruz and the continental reaches of the Tierra del Fuego Province (without Argentine Antarctica or the Islands of the South Atlantic). Southern Chilean Patagonia would include the southern part of the Aysén Region and the continental part of the Magallanes Region (without Chilean Antarctica). Of course, these are only referential limits, used for practical purposes to provide context for this book and its contents.

Given this setting, Fig. 1.1 provides a heat map that overlaps the study areas of each of this book’s 18 chapters. The red and orange colors show the areas located between Coyhaique and El Chaltén, which represent the predominant geographic focus of the studies within this book. Not surprisingly, many of these study areas coincide with Chilean and Argentine protected areas (PAs). These include Cerro Castillo National Park, some sections of the Carretera Austral, San Rafael Lagoon National Park, and the northern part of Bernardo O’Higgins National Park. Yellow and light green colored areas indicate areas of repeated but with less intense coverage within this book, and also correspond, in large part, with national PAs in both countries. In Argentina, these areas include Lanín National Park and Nahuel Huapi National Park, in what we describe as northern Patagonia, and Los Glaciares National Park and Alberto de Agostini National Park in southern Patagonia. In Chile, these areas include Magdalena Island National Park and Queulat National Park within central Patagonia, and Patagonia National Park, Bernardo O’Higgins National Park, and Torres del Paine National Park in southern Patagonia. Dark green zones indicate areas with less coverage within this book: generally relating to the study area designated within a single investigation. These are also distributed in both Chile and Argentina and often coincide with PAs.

1.1.1 Contexts and Foundations of Contemporary Patagonian Social-Environmental Systems

To understand current-day Patagonia, it is important to understand some of the history of the two countries which share its governance. Chile and Argentina divide the southern portion of South America, sharing the third longest international border in the world which extends 5300 km (Thies 2001). Before these countries were formed, the lands they occupied were home to numerous Indigenous groups whose ancestors migrated from Asia, through Beringia, down the Americas, reaching Chile and Argentina sometime between 18,500 and 15,000 years ago (Prates et al. 2013). During the sixteenth century, Chile and Argentina were colonized by Europe through distinct processes (Cervantes 2020). The Chilean conquest began in 1541 as part of a southern extension of the Peruvian conquest. Argentina was initially settled overland from Peru, Chile, and the Atlantic, with a permanent Spanish colony being established in Buenos Aires in 1580. Both Chile and Argentina were colonies of Spain until the intervention of Napoleon in 1808 which left Spain without a clear ruler; thus, leaving the colonies to forge their own provisional governments and begin moving toward autonomy. Officially, Argentine independence was declared on July 9, 1816, while Chile’s official declaration was issued on February 12, 1818 (Cervantes 2020).

The foundations of contemporary Patagonian social-environmental systems evolved during the nineteenth century when Argentina and Chile emerged as independent states with their own formal colonization and frontier expansion efforts that extended the length of the southern cone periphery, including claims to strategic points of control for the Strait of Magellan (Thies 2001). Although the Patagonia boundary was formally agreed to in 1881, conflicts and tensions about the territory have persisted and taken on new forms (Thies 2001). Extractive industries like mining, forestry, and ranching have been used by both countries to establish, occupy, and develop their respective territories and borderlands. More recently, green, or conservation-based development (CBD), has emerged as an alternative development mechanism that is used for similar ends. This mechanism has manifested through purposeful protected area designations and an increasing emphasis on rural transitions, positioning nature-based tourism as a central, and often controversial element, within territorial strategies.

1.1.2 Patagonia as a Peripheral Territory

Immanuel Wallerstein’s critical World System Theory (WST), developed during the 1970s, broke away from functionalist tradition by introducing a new conceptual understanding of capitalism, industrialization, and world order through a Marxist-inspired lens (Hier 2001; Lennerfors et al. 2015). WST rejected the division of the world’s countries within first, second, and third worlds, instead approaching social analysis and change from the standpoint that, “there is only one world connected by a complex network of economic exchange relationships” (Sorinel 2010, p. 220). Drawing on dependency theory concepts (Frank 1969), WST focused on the place-based social and economic inequalities that arise in the world as a result of capitalism’s need to expand geographically in order to survive (Lennerfors et al. 2015). He described capitalist exploitation in terms of three geographic concepts: core (i.e., developed, rich countries), periphery (i.e., poor countries), and in-between—semi-periphery—positing that the wealth of core zones depends on the raw materials, goods, and labor of the periphery (Lennerfors et al. 2015).

In the years since its inception, WST has been extended and applied to various scales and contexts. For example, Hornborg connected ecology with WST in order to conceptualize the environmental effects and implications of capitalism for core, periphery, and in-between territories (Hornborg 1998, 2001, 2009). Responding to increased social-spatial inequality, spatial research has re-engaged with the concept of peripheralization in recent years (Bachmann-Vargas and van Koppen 2020; Kühn 2015; Kühn et al. 2017). Kühn (2015) described modern consideration of peripheralization as related to process, rather than place. As such, peripheralization can apply to any spatial process in which political, social, economic, or communicative processes lead to marginalization from a structural perspective (i.e., social marginality and poverty, political dependency or exclusion, economic polarization).

Both Chile and Argentina can be considered as semi-peripheral territories (Cairó-i-Céspedes and Palacios Cívico 2022; Önis 2006). They are generally considered industrialized and contribute to the manufacture and export of a spectrum of goods. While they offer their inhabitants diverse economic opportunities, they also exhibit wide gaps between social conditions, depending on economic situations. Patagonia (both Argentina and Chile) can be characterized as a periphery within a semi-periphery (Núñez 2015; see Chap. 7, Schweitzer et al.). The region is rich in natural resources, including an abundance of public land, freshwater reserves, forests, minerals, fjords, fisheries, biodiversity, pampas, and grasslands, among others. Patagonia has low population densities and few urban centers (Gale and Ednie 2019; Núñez 2015). It is less developed than the central regions of both Chile and Argentina, including its social support systems (e.g., education, health care, arts), and is dependent on (and some would say, exploited by) the services and funding provided by the core areas of Chilean and Argentina semi-peripheries, and foreign interests of the international core (Gale et al. 2013). Although these conditions manifest differently in Argentina and Chile as a result of differences in federal and republic systems of government, similarities in lived experiences have been observed (Gale et al. 2013; Lambert and Scribner 2021).

Recent human settlement, emergent national development strategies, formal colonization, and frontier expansion efforts designed to exploit natural resource-rich territories have led to the manifestation of Patagonia as an ideal region for CBD. In Patagonia and other peripheral territories around the world, CBD often marginalizes peripheral areas as it is an outcome of the interaction between the resources of the periphery and the needs, wants, and power of the core (Abrams et al. 2012; Blair et al. 2019; Gale et al. 2013; Núñez et al. 2020). In many ways, CBD is another mechanism by which the core exploits the periphery (Gale et al. 2013; Núñez et al. 2020). Placed within the current context of climate change, global biodiversity crisis, as well as the complex network of international organizations and agreements that oversee and manage these crises; however, CBD becomes much more complex and dynamic, as myriad relationships and flows of power emerge and evolve (Louder and Bosak 2022; Núñez et al. 2020).

1.1.3 Government, Power, and Neoliberalism in Chilean and Argentine Patagonia

Both Argentina and Chile have experienced long periods of democratic rule and multiple periods of dictatorship. During the twentieth century, Argentina experienced six coup d’états, in 1930, 1943, 1955, 1962, 1966, and 1976 (Ormaechea 2021; Vitale 2009). While the first four involved interim rule, during the 17-year period from 1966 to 1983, the dictatorships ruled through a bureaucratic-authoritarian state (Vitale 2009). During the twentieth century, Chile experienced two coup d’états: one in 1924 that resulted in a new constitution the following year, and the other involving a violent takeover and prolonged authoritarian military dictatorship that lasted 17 years, between 1973 and 1990 (Lambert and Scribner 2021; Thies 2001; Warren 2013).

Current systems of government within Argentina and Chile are very distinct. Chile is governed through a representative democratic republic, as a unitary state in which most of the governing power resides centrally with its president. Presidents are elected to a 4-year term and may be re-elected twice, though their terms must be noncontinuous. The president appoints and leads the Cabinet of Ministers, who in turn manage the administration of the country. The country is divided into 15 regions, 54 provinces, and 345 communes, which are governed at the local level through municipal governments. Legislative power is shared by the government and the bi-chamber National Congress, composed of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The Chamber of Deputies is formed by 155 directly elected members who are appointed for 4 years. The Senate is formed by 50 directly elected members who are appointed for alternating four-year terms, with half of its members renewed every 4 years (Antía 2019; Niedzwiecki and Pribble 2017).

In contrast, Argentina has a representative, republican, federal union. Its constitution was implemented in 1853 and modeled on the United States’ constitution. In 1994, it was amended to provide for consecutive presidential terms, though the 1853 document remains largely intact. Argentina is divided into 23 provinces with Buenos Aires as its federal capital district. While executive power resides with the president, who is elected to terms of 4 years (with a maximum of two consecutive terms), their role is much more limited than in Chile. They lead the armed forces, make civil and judicial appointments, and lead the Cabinet of Ministers, who administer federal public services. The legislature in Argentina consists of two houses, including a 257-seat Chamber of Deputies who serve four-year terms and a 72-seat Senate, who are elected for six-year terms. Each province has its own constitution, government, legislative, and judicial branches, and retains all powers not specifically set apart for the federal government (Warren 2013).

Chile has had several constitutions since establishing its independence (Kennedy 2017). The Constitution of 1833 was in place until 1925, followed by another constitution that remained in effect until 1973 when the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet suspended it, along with Congress. In 1980, a constitutional referendum replaced the 1925 constitution with a new constitution, granting significant overarching powers to Augusto Pinochet as President of the Republic. Some of these powers were modified or eliminated after 1990 in the more than 70 amendments since Chile’s return to democracy and the re-establishment of Congress (Kennedy 2017). Nevertheless, increasing recognition of the long-standing limitations of the 1980 constitution led to growing social unrest in Chile, culminating in a national plebiscite in 2020 in which 78% of voters called for a new Constitution. Subsequently, a diverse, democratically elected assembly drafted a new Constitution which was submitted for popular vote and overwhelmingly rejected by Chile’s eligible voters. Thus, a new process is currently underway, involving two popular votes in 2023. The first will take place in May and will elect a 50-person Constitutional Council to draft a new Constitutional document, which will be submitted to a vote during a December referendum.

These historical differences have a great impact on the format and processes for conservation funding and governance in the two countries, particularly in the context of privately driven conservation. For example, in Argentina, the 1994 constitutional reform established the environment as a collective and legal good, defining that the people have the right and the obligation to preserve a healthy environment (Argentine National Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development 2017). Furthermore, Article 124 of this Constitution provided the provinces with legislative power over their natural resources, regardless of ownership. Protected area management and legality are regulated both at a national and at a provincial level depending on their jurisdiction (Myron et al. 2019a). Legal restrictions impede foreign land purchase, especially with respect to lands close to the national border (Myron et al. 2019b; Ponzi 2020). Civil code in Argentina does not define private protected areas or consider private conservation protection in perpetuity (Myron et al. 2019b). Therefore, to establish a new national park or amend an existing one, the Provincial government must agree to cede lands and control through its legislature, even when the lands are donated by private landholders (Ponzi 2020; see Chap. 7, Schweitzer et al.).

In Chile, the 1931 Forest Law provided the president with the power to establish national parks and reserves (Myron et al. 2019b). Land rights are disaggregated (e.g., freshwater, subsoil minerals, geothermal water and energy, coastal intertidal zone, real property), so there can be overlaps between parties and claims, in which some of the disaggregated rights supercede real property rights (Myron et al. 2019b). That said, private entities can hold legal title over land in Chile, and to date, when private lands are purchased in Chile (which is legal) and then donated back to the State, negotiations can, and have, occurred at a national level with the executive branch, without the necessity of local territorial involvement (Blair et al. 2019; Borrie et al. 2020; Gale and Ednie 2019; Myron et al. 2019b; see Chap. 10, Inostroza et al.).

One of the more complex issues that have arisen in Chile and Argentina with respect to CBD has involved perceptions and realities related to neoliberalism, especially as they pertain to government oversight of the environment and the inclusion of local communities and territories in protected area governance (Borrie et al. 2020; De Matheus e Silva et al. 2018; Gentes and Policzer 2022; Grugel and Riggirozzi 2012; Jones 2012; Latta and Aguayo 2012; McCarthy 2012; Önis 2006; Tabbush and Caminotti 2015). Neoliberal restructuring has played a major role in the modern development of both Argentine and Chilean Patagonia. Argentina was a rich agricultural exporter during the 1930s but did not maintain those trends after World War II. During authoritarian rule from 1966 to 1983, the country experienced a prolonged period of low growth and hyperinflation. The 1976 coup d’état was motivated as an attempt to overcome these economic obstacles and began to roll back high levels of state intervention and protectionism, to open up the Argentine economy (Ormaechea 2021; Undurraga 2015). Argentina returned to democracy with Raúl Alfonsin’s election in 1983, and subsequently underwent extreme neoliberal reforms designed and implemented in the final years of the 1980s.

During most of the 1990s, Argentina experienced a prolonged period of high economic growth, with reduced levels of inflation. This period ended with recession from 1998 to 2002, punctuated by a major economic crisis in 2001. In the aftermath of this crisis, the country experienced massive social and political unrest which criticized populism and corruption within the Federal structure, exposing the risks of Argentina’s neoliberal policies that emphasized heavy international borrowing and economic growth driven by short-term capital inflows (Önis 2006; Ormaechea 2021). As an example of the severity of unrest and distrust, there were five presidents between December 20, 2001, and January 2, 2002 (Ormaechea 2021). Subsequent economic policy in Argentina, led by the Kirchner governments, moved away from neoliberal tactics, with self-described post-neoliberal politics that promised social justice delivered through government-led and -controlled economic and social intervention (Ormaechea 2021; Undurraga 2015; Villalón 2007). During this time, researchers began to understand that neoliberalism and post-neoliberalism extended well beyond economic and political policy in the mind of the public (Grugel and Riggirozzi 2012; Ormaechea 2021; Undurraga 2015). For example, Grugel and Riggirozzi (2012) expanded post-neoliberalism to involve more than just economic aspects, saying, “It is also a call for a new kind of politics, rooted in and responsive to local traditions and communities, and an attempt to forge a new pact between society and the state” (p. 3). Nevertheless, since the death of Néstor Kirchner in 2010, Argentina has remained a country in dispute, marked by frequent social discord, crisis, political corruption, and uncertainty, suggesting that this form of post-neoliberal development is still very much in evolution (Elbert and Pérez 2018; Lublin 2021; Tabbush and Caminotti 2015; Undurraga 2015; Wylde 2016).

Much has been written about Chile’s deployment of neoliberal policies and structures during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and the relatively few changes that have occurred in these policies since Chile’s return to democracy more than three decades ago (Gentes and Policzer 2022; Harvey 2005; Latta and Aguayo 2012). Chile’s environmental oversight and controls remain diffuse, spread among at least 14 ministries and 28 public services at a national level, 16 regional governments, and 345 municipalities, resulting in a complex institutional scenario. Perhaps the biggest change to date for conservation and environmental concern relates to the implementation of Chile’s Environmental Assessment System (SEIA) in 1997, though this system has also been met with ongoing question and debate (Latta and Aguayo 2012; OECD 2016).

In Chile, there is no single institution overseeing biodiversity conservation priorities nor a single public service dedicated to strengthening protected areas in an integrated manner (BIOFIN Chile 2017; Chilean Ministry of the Environment 2019). In addition to governance complexities, funding deficits are a long-standing issue for biodiversity conservation. In 2010, a joint report of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and Spain’s national parks agency (Organismo Autonomo Parques Nacionales, OAPN) identified significant protected area funding risks throughout Latin America. The report noted that, at the time, Chile invested only around US$0.95 per 10,000 m2 in protected areas, representing one of the lowest rates of investment in Latin America (FAO/OAPN 2010).

During the decade that followed this influential report, work has focused on development of legal instruments, management systems, financial tools, and governance approaches that comprise the current institutional structure and financing system for conservation. In 2011, a law was presented to the Chilean congress to create the Biodiversity and Protected Areas Service (SBAP) and an integrated National System of Protected Areas (SNAP) to include all of Chile’s public and private protected areas, both terrestrial and marine (Donoso 2019). Subsequent debate and modifications have focused on improving the proposed law, resulting in an amended submission in 2014 (Donoso 2019). The 2014 modification proposed funding based on a combination of private resources, public support, and income-generating mechanisms, relying heavily on the contributions of private entities and initiatives that will require modifications in law related to the tax treatment of charitable donations (Walker 2018).

Although much time has passed, the bill remains in active debate. It was approved by the Environment Committee in 2017, by the Finance Committee and the Senate Chamber in 2019, and also has the support of the Labor and Social Welfare Committee. In 2021, the Agriculture, Forestry, and Rural Development Committee of the Chamber of Deputies approved the bill. Next steps include the Chamber’s vote and subsequent consideration by the Senate. As such, while big changes seem imminent for Chile’s conservation funding and governance, it seems likely the country will continue to endorse neoliberal approaches as necessary for the successful designation and financing of Chile’s protected areas, including accelerated development of protected area nature-based tourism concessions.

1.1.4 Conservation-Based Development

CBD is a key theme of this book and as such we begin with a discussion of this phenomenon and its relationship to peripheral areas. CBD is a process by which conservation serves as a catalyst for development. Oftentimes, conservation is embodied through PAs whether they be public or private. These PAs attract visitors who in turn spend money both at the site and in the surrounding areas. This spending spurs further development, particularly in the tourism and recreation sectors. As conservation-related tourism and recreation grow, local livelihoods change as do the character of communities. Eventually, the natural amenities of these regions attract new residents, be they full time or part time, that buy real estate and begin to change the very demographics of these areas. Central governments around the world have keyed into this phenomenon and are now promoting CBD in their peripheral areas as a way to boost gross domestic product. The relationship between CBD and peripheral areas is predicated on the pattern of conservation and in particular PAs. PAs are largely located in peripheral areas for the simple fact that it is easier to conserve large tracts of land where there are fewer people and less demand for the resources from agriculture or extraction (Fig. 1.2).

Fig. 1.2
A conceptual map has the following labels core urban, conservation-based development, periphery rural, public protected areas, and relationships.

Conceptual map of conservation-based development relationships

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Therefore, CBD exists primarily in peripheral areas. This is evidenced in the proliferation of PAs in mountain regions which tend to exist in the periphery. These peripheral areas are mostly rural, and often have a history of resource extraction such as logging, mining, and/or agricultural production. Most of the products from peripheral areas go to meeting the needs of the core. With CBD, the change from extraction and production-based economies to conservation-based economies often produces conflict. Policy shifts from central governments toward developing or enlarging PAs and PA systems are often an additional source of conflict. The development of PAs often limits local livelihoods and threatens traditional cultures. Tensions can arise between local people, national governments, and PAs because conservation policies are made in the centers of power and implemented in the periphery, in many cases with little or no input from people living in peripheral areas. More recently, International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) and multinational corporations have aligned with national governments to promote CBD in peripheral areas. One outcome of this alignment is a series of mechanisms to finance CBD. These mechanisms include financing for PAs through grants and other transfers, and return-based investments, among others. National governments support CBD through environmentally based taxes, penalties for industrial pollution, carbon offsetting schemes, increasing PA coverage, and financing of biodiversity and habitat restoration. Corporations play a role in financing INGOs, buying carbon credits or participating in other environmentally conscious business practices, and working with national governments to gain access to the resources of the periphery. This might include foreign direct investment in infrastructure and services needed for tourism and amenity migration. The imaginary of CBD then coalesces around a narrative of capitalism for conservation (Louder and Bosak 2022). This narrative often revolves around a crisis. In this case, it is the dual crisis of climate change and biodiversity conservation. Local people in the periphery are often portrayed as backward and ignorant, needing to be saved from themselves. The heroes are the governments, INGOs, and corporations that step in to protect the land and offer economic development to the wayward locals. Consumers are then invited to support this narrative through tourism, purchase of products, and donations to conservation INGOs (Louder and Bosak 2022). All of this is further cemented in the global zeitgeist through media such as documentaries, photography, art, and books that extend the narrative into the creative realm.

Patagonia is a relative newcomer to CBD. Many parts of the region only received road access within the last 30 years. Tourism is a recent phenomenon as is the arrival of the energy industry. The process of transition in Patagonia is happening at a frenetic rate and while it shares some parallels to CBD in places like the United States, there are also differences.

CBD in peripheral areas has been well documented in the shift in the United States from the Old West to the New West. This shift is often characterized as one where working (productive) landscapes become conservation and recreation landscapes. This shift is accompanied by the changing role of public lands from places that once provided timber, minerals, and grass for grazing to places of recreation, leisure, and tourism (Gosnell and Jesse 2011; Shumway and Otterstrom 2001). The changing role of public lands is a reflection of changing economic trends and changes in government policy; both of which are moving away from extractive and productive activities to emphasize more consumptive activities like outdoor recreation. Modernity and capitalism are implicated as drivers of this shift from productive to consumptive economies as people’s identities become intertwined with their lifestyles, culture, and recreational activities. These consumers are increasingly attracted to rural and mountain areas in the periphery because they offer the amenities that align with their values. These amenities include access to public lands including national parks, forests and wildlife refuges, as well as proximity to rural communities and the recreational activities they seek to pursue (Shumway and Otterstrom 2001; Stewart 2002).

In the United States, this shift has focused on the immigration of people from the core, urban areas to peripheral and mountain areas in the West in search of scenic beauty and recreational opportunities. However, the rural transition in the United States began with tourism based on the conservation of natural areas. The US government has long promoted tourism on public lands, and tourism has served as an economic driver for many gateway communities adjacent to these lands. Tourists to peripheral and mountain areas of the US West eventually began to move from short stays in temporary accommodations to seasonal residences and finally permanent homes (Stewart 2002). These gentrifiers of the US West brought with them their own set of values and ideas of how to relate to nature. These values oftentimes conflicted with those of long-time residents who saw their culture as threatened by the newcomers (Ooi et al. 2016). CBD in the US West was predicated on the existence of public lands, the willingness of the government to shift policies for these lands from production to consumption (tourism and recreation), the consumers who had an interest in the landscapes, and the local communities who were more than willing to embrace the economic transition (Abrams and Gosnell 2012). This situation in Patagonia is much the same as it was in the US West in the late twentieth century. There are large swaths of public lands that governments are promoting for recreation and tourism, willing consumers who are eager to leave crowded urban areas for a better life, and communities who are either willing or have no other choice but to shift their economies to cater to these new consumers.

While many of the patterns seen in the United States with the shift from the old west to the new west are evident in Patagonia, there are some important differences. The shift to CBD in Patagonia is fueled by the expansion of PAs both public and private, and the dual crises of climate change and biodiversity loss provide the justification for this expansion. Furthermore, corporations, INGOs, and national governments are working in conjunction to develop a narrative around the need for CBD based on these crises. They then collude to provide funding mechanisms for conservation and development. The coordination of national governments, INGOs, and corporations has accelerated the pace of CBD in Patagonia to the point where local people are often caught unaware of the changes and powerless to influence the direction or character of the development.

1.2 Overview of the Book Sections

This book is divided into three parts: each with a collection of peer-reviewed studies grounded in the imaginary of Patagonia. Table 1.1 and Fig. 1.3 present an overview of the geographic emphasis for these studies. The sections that follow introduce some of the important theoretical concepts within each part of this book, with an overview of chapter contributions.

Table 1.1 Geographic overview of study areas within northern, central, and southern Patagonia, for each book chapter
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Fig. 1.3
A map of South America and 18 maps of Chile and Argentina represent the study area for chapters 1, 2, and 3.

Geographical representation of the study areas for each chapter

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The studies that consider Argentine Patagonia mainly contemplate areas bordering Chile, although scattered points were also recorded toward the central-eastern sector of the country. Chapters 2, 4, and 6 offer perspectives rooted in northern Argentine Patagonia. Chapter 4 considers the central Argentine area of Patagonia. Chapters 2, 4, 7, and 8 focus on spaces within southern Argentine Patagonia. Chapter 9 also considers Argentina but concentrates on Iberá National Park in the northeastern reaches of the country, near Uruguay and Paraguay. Nevertheless, the majority of the chapters’ study areas are concentrated in Chilean Patagonia. Chapters 6, 9, 16, and 17 consider settings within the northern sectors of Chilean Patagonia. Eleven of the chapters considered central Chilean Patagonia within their study areas, including Chaps. 3, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 18. Southern Chilean Patagonia was also studied within 11 of this book’s chapters, including Chaps. 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, and 18.

Figure 1.3 specifies the area of study for each of these chapters, dividing them between the three parts of this book. Part I of this book: Evolution of the green economy in Patagonia features research from all three zones of Argentine and Chilean Patagonia. Part II of this book: Contemporary conservation-based development: Challenges for green integration emphasizes research from all three zones of Chilean Patagonia and the southern zone of Argentine Patagonia. Part III of this book: Resilience and sustainability shares lessons from all three zones of Chilean Patagonia.

1.2.1 Part I: Evolution of the Green Economy in Patagonia

While social imaginaries can be conceptualized as the different ways in which people imagine their social whole (e.g., combinations of sociocultural practices, meaning and materiality, and human agency), environmental imaginaries can be conceptualized as the “constellation of ideas that groups of humans develop about a given landscape” (Davis and Burke 2011, p.134). Environmental governance researchers have found it useful to consider these imaginaries to better understand how relations with the environment are created and staged (Chhetri et al. 2022).

During the twenty-first century, the geography of imaginaries concept has expanded within human geography research and thinking (Chhetri et al. 2022). This term builds on foundations that began around 1947 when John Wright posited that geographic imaginaries (cultural and ideological constructions of place) were created by all sorts of people, from geographers to farmers and painters, tourists, and conservationists. These observations set the course for the contemporary idea of geography as a pluriverse of different imaginations, many of which are shared between social groups. The concepts of environmental and social imaginaries were integrated in the 1980s when geographers suggested that geographic imaginaries influenced social constructions of nature and society (e.g., Duncan and Duncan 1988; Massey 1984). In the 1990s, the concept of geographic imaginaries continued to evolve and integrate with critical social theory, as described by Howie and Lewis (2014):

Geographers began to see popular, institutional, political and technical representations of the world as structured by more or less fixed, distinctive and discernible framings of relations between people, place and territory. These framings may be intuited, discursive, textual or institutionalized, but they shape and frame how people understand their worlds and those of others. (p. 133)

Today, the term geography of imaginaries is used to express that there are multiple geographic imaginations within the world which can be used, politically, to frame our understandings about the world and influence social discourse and action (Howie and Lewis 2014). As geographers have come to understand the deep embeddedness of social imaginaries within specific territories (Taussing 1997), they have observed an increasing plurality of environmental imaginaries. These imaginaries can be applied across tenses, affecting a territory’s current state, framing how a territory came to be, and allowing stakeholders to project a future trajectory. In fact, some describe that environmental change can either be the cause, or effect of, environmental imaginaries (Davis and Burke 2011). Several authors have noted how impactful environmental imaginaries can be, and how their construction, through discourse and narratives, can have widespread and lasting effects on the ways people think about territories (e.g., Bachmann-Vargas and van Koppen 2020; Bachmann-Vargas et al. 2021; Chhetri et al. 2022; Davis and Burke 2011). While these imaginaries can unite groups or people, they can also provoke conflicts stemming from differences in envisioned societal outcomes (Davis and Burke 2011; Chhetri et al. 2022).

Thus, for environmental governance researchers, whose work is intimately connected with place, it is critical to understand and consider the range of environmental imaginaries that have shaped collective action (Chhetri et al. 2022). Who tells the stories that shape, and frame imaginaries is important, since power plays a role in their trajectories. Davis and Burke (2011) pointed out this dynamic in reference to imperial and colonial settings, emphasizing that when environmental representations are constructed from outside of a territory, the imaginaries may be imported and imposed rather than representative of the lived experiences within the territory.

Part I of this book explores the imaginaries that have arisen in Chile and Argentina seeking to shape development in Patagonia. Mendoza (Chap. 2) presents an examination of the political economy of nature and the Moreno-centric imaginary which dominates Argentine history, positing that this imaginary has rendered invisible state violence and Indigenous dispossession, and that such invisibility is a precondition of national conservation. His argument focuses on two historic aspects of capitalist territorialization in Patagonia: the clearing-out strategy pursued by the Argentine government to open Patagonia for colonization and agrarian capitalism; the re-territorialization of space through the creation of national parks and the promotion of leisure capitalism. Muñoz Rebolledo et al. (Chap. 3) explore how the Longitudinal Austral Highway (Carretera Austral, in Spanish), which facilitates connectivity and access to natural environments throughout the Aysén region of Chilean Patagonia, has operated as the mobilizing axis for different processes of imagining, valuing, and appropriating nature. The authors posit that the links between connectivity, tourism, and conservation have changed over time as material and symbolic appropriations of nature in Patagonia have evolved.

Anderson et al. (Chap. 4) propose Patagonia as a dynamic social-ecological system that has been imagined and reimagined over time, through discourses, practices, and institutions that are connected and interrelated along local-to-international scales. Their research employed the social imaginary framework to conduct an historical analysis of local, national, and international influences regarding the way nature and tourism are conceived and managed in national PAs. Salazar-Burrows et al. (Chap. 5) discuss the impact of normative notions of nature and culture in the production of narratives about western Patagonia, exploring how these imaginaries underscore the practices of contemporary CBD and tourism, especially within the Exploradores Valley. They reflect on two major transformations in western Patagonia: first, the shift in historical and environmental configurations of western Patagonia, including the continuity of the colonization processes up to the present day, and the continuities and ruptures of economic activities, mainly tourism. Second, they posit that the current occupation strategies, which mainly focus on the touristification of western Patagonia, are best understood as a process of commodification of nature. Sepúlveda and Martínez-Berríos (Chap. 6) discuss tourism both as a window revealing the tensions between environmental conservation and Indigenous territorial rights and as a sociopolitical process that could resolve them. They explore the dual processes of exploitation/protection of the Araucaria, in northern Chilean Patagonia, contextualizing these processes within the framework of the territorial dispossession that has affected (and continues to affect) the Pewenche in the upper basin of the Bío-Bío River.

1.2.2 Part II: Contemporary Conservation-Based Development: Challenges for Green Integration

Part II of this book explores the relationship between the neoliberal model of CBD that is widespread in Chilean Patagonia and advancing in Argentine Patagonia, to better understand actual and potential impacts that this model has on people, cultures, economies, and ecosystems. For example, in Borrie et al.’s (2020) recent case study, the authors identified three vulnerabilities arising from neoliberal approaches to conservation: a loss of the social embeddedness of nature; an imposition of global, capital dynamics; and conflicting discourses and assumptions. The authors call for greater attention toward social equity and justice, emphasizing processes to build social capital around PAs (public and private), and more generally, citizen-led conservation. Specifically, they recommended, “regional and [private protected area]-specific land-use planning needs to incorporate greater public engagement, cross-jurisdictional coordination, and transparent and inclusive decision-making” (Borrie et al. 2020, p. 1). They also emphasize the importance of supporting local communities with the preservation of their histories and identities. Several similar challenges arose in the chapters presented within this part of this book: both in Chile and in Argentina.

Chapters 7 and 8 focus on Patagonia as a transboundary region, evaluating how cross-border disputes and collaboration processes occur for Argentina and Chile. Specifically, Schweitzer et al. (Chap. 7) focus on cross-border nature-based tourism strategies along the border, presenting a case study of the Huella de Glaciares (Trail of the Glaciers), situated in the Santa Cruz Province of Argentina and the Aysén Region of Chile. According to the authors’ research, the Huella de Glaciares and several other overland routes that connect with the larger Patagonia territory (e.g., Route of the Parks including the Carretera Austral in Chile, and Scenic Route 41 in Argentina) respond to renewed cross-border processes. The authors warn that these products are being promoted by both the Argentine and Chilean governments and private tourism agents without sufficient consideration of their sustainability. Mirza et al. (Chap. 8) explored transboundary conservation across political and spatial scales in the Southern Patagonian Ice Field shared between Chile and Argentina. The authors underscored the role of freshwater resources in disputed, transboundary landscapes and found that local community collaboration, rooted in shared identity, was the basis of existing transboundary collaboration in southern Patagonia.

Chapters 9 and 10 explore some of the development values and conflicts that have arisen in recent decades in Patagonia. Specifically, Serenari and Bachmann-Vargas (Chap. 9) analyze values and conflicts within the narratives that arose around Tompkins Conservation in Chilean Patagonia and Argentina. Their case study traces the development of meaning regarding Douglas and Kristine Tompkins’ effort to create private protected areas in Chilean Patagonia and Argentina. Narratives developed by researchers, conservation entities, politicians, and other actors reveal connections, tensions, and contradictions produced by the broader Tompkins project. Inostroza Villanueva et al. (Chap. 10) explore how Modernization, Transformation, and Control sustainable development (SD) imaginaries and trajectories interacted with three large-scale development proposal: the Patagonia National Parks network, the HidroAysén hydroelectric project, and the Río Cuervo hydroelectric project. Their case study identified six themes: a desire for greater proactiveness around transparency, a binding participation process of governance, bottom-up decision-making, re-empowerment of local groups, decentralization, and improved oversight practices. They suggest that SD agility, or “the strategic ability to maneuver between SD imaginaries and trajectories to achieve strategic SD outcomes,” may present an important capacity for SD futures trajectories.

The final two chapters of Part II seek to better understand tourism development and sustainability in Chilean Patagonia. Adiego et al. (Chap. 11) use Ante Mandić’s (2020) conception of Drivers, Pressures, State, Impacts, and Responses (DPSIR) to identify causal chains for sustainable tourism development within two Chilean Patagonia national parks: Cerro Castillo and Torres del Paine. Outcomes of the study represent an important first step for developing a better understanding of the causal chains related to the economic, social, and environmental dynamics of tourism in PAs within Chilean Patagonia. Báez Montenegro et al. (Chap. 12) use two hypothetical visual experience scenarios to explore the effect of salmon aquaculture infrastructure on how Chilean tourists’ value tourism experiences in and around the Chilean village of Puyuhuapi. Results support current nature-based tourism experience positioning but find several interactions between tourism experience attributes and socio-demographic characteristics, including population density, level of education, and sex. They define a series of hypotheses to expand our current understanding of Chilean perspectives and imaginaries of Patagonia.

1.2.3 Part III: Redefining and Evolving Conservation-Based Development Toward Locally Led Resilience and Sustainability

Part III of this book explores contemporary efforts that are occurring in Patagonia in an effort to move beyond the current governance models to forge new stewardship, governance, and relational models for locally led CBD. Chapter authors provide numerous case studies that illustrate the complexities of integrating resilience and sustainability approaches in current CBD models. Throughout Patagonia, there is a realization that any movement toward resilience and sustainable development must be led by empowered locals. However, that does not mean that national and global actors have no place: national governments can provide policy direction, legal protection, resources, and systems. However, it must be noted that political changes at the national level in Argentina and Chile can mean that progress toward local governance in the CBD space can be reversed quickly. For their part, local communities can work with national governments and INGOs to provide opportunities for ethical and deliberate decision-making, transdisciplinary science, quality travel experiences, and co-creation of management plans within the region.

Chapters 13, 14, and 15 focus on tourism in and around protected areas of the Aysén Region to better understand the potential for shared governance, resilience planning, and the development of sustainable tourism through science. Rovira et al. (Chap. 13) describe a case study into the development of a local tourism council for Cerro Castillo National Park as part of a recent regional tourism governance project. The project seeks to develop a participatory multi-scale governance system that would allow local communities to collaborate with SNASPE PAs (PAs) to improve tourism services, both within PAs and surrounding communities. They observed enabling factors that may inform the creation of local tourism councils in other areas and help stimulate local economies, thereby improving the potential for tourism development to be compatible with the conservation of natural and cultural heritage. Gutiérrez-Vega et al. (Chap. 14) identified key resilience factors (capabilities, ownership, and connections) in four nature-based tourism destinations in the Aysén Region of Chile: Aysén Patagonia Queulat, Coyhaique-Puerto Aysén-Cerro Castillo, Lago General Carrera, and Provincia de los Glaciares (Province of the Glaciers). They report positive evaluations for several resilience factors in three of the four tourism destinations; however, all four destinations presented high levels of natural risks, with the Provincia de los Glaciares destination as the most vulnerable. They suggest destinations with higher levels of natural risks should focus on strengthening their resilience factors. Veloso et al. (Chap. 15) evaluated Scientific Tourism potential in the Aysén Region of Chilean Patagonia. They developed a matrix of weighted criteria to assess the potential for sustainable Scientific Tourism and found that involving travelers in research initiatives taking place in Patagonian destinations allows them to develop lasting connections with the heritage and institutions of these territories.

Chapters 16, 17, and 18 conclude Part III with a series of experiments that are occurring in Chilean Patagonia to redefine human–human and human–nonhuman relationships and their connections with stewardship and conservation. Lazo Álvarez et al. (Chap. 16) explore the potential for the Nature Bathing initiative, developed within the Chilean National Forestry Corporation’s (CONAF) Nature for Everyone program, to contribute to resilience and sustainability. CONAF’s Nature Bathing program integrates elements of forest bathing (Shinrin Yoku, in Japanese), grounding, and Andean Indigenous and popular culture. They discuss how such programs can help to strengthen the role of PAs in supporting public health and helping visitors build resilience while connecting with nature. Zunino and Spirito (Chap. 17) describe three alternative ways for inhabiting the territory of Southern Chile that are being developed as local community projects in the mountainous area of the Araucanía region: (1) a community project recreating Mesoamerican Indigenous practices, (2) the Waldorf Educational Project that represents a pedagogical counter-proposal developed by the European spiritual thinker Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), and (3) permaculture projects that seek new forms of food production through a close link with nature. These projects have raised interest through the profound transformation in how locals interrelate with nature. They suggest new forms of living will be needed as society progresses through crises that break away from dualistic ways of thinking about humans and nature. Finally, Gale et al. (Chap. 18) close this book, by bringing together some of the challenges that arose in Part II with an integrative proposal for moving forward through locally led approaches and programs that promise new policies and mechanisms for oversight. The authors explored three initiatives underway in the Aysén and Magallanes regions of Chile that foster biocultural reawakening, democratize science, and catalyze sustainable development: (1) Subantarctic Natural Laboratories; (2) 3-Hs Biocultural Ethic and Field Environmental Philosophy Cycle Approach; and (3) Scientific Tourism Collaborative Learning Networks. These project methods were studied to explore how their integration might strengthen CBD in Patagonia through ethical travel experiences rooted in the biocultural of local communities. Results suggest promise for a combined approach; thus, additional research and consideration is merited.

1.3 A Bit About the Authors Involved in This Project

We would like to close this chapter by sharing a bit about the authors involved in this project. We sought to include a range of voices and perspectives, made up of a broad diversity of gender and nationality, with a particular emphasis on the research perspectives of Argentinian and Chilean authors. There are a total of 51 authors involved in the 18 chapters of this book. Our group of authors are affiliated with institutions in Argentina (5), Chile (39), France (2), the Netherlands (1), Spain (1), and the United States (10). Twenty-three (45%) are women and 28 are men (55%). There are six chapters (33%) with a female first author and twelve (67%) with a female second author. There are 12 chapters (67%) with a male first author and six with a male second author (33%). The first author for 11 chapters (61%) and the second author for 12 chapters (67%) are from either Chile or from Argentina. Finally, 29 (57%) of the authors live and work in Patagonia. Eight of the chapters (44%) feature a first author who lives and works in Patagonia, and another 10 chapters (56%) have a second author who lives and works in this special region of the world.