WHY CHOOSE THIS TRIP

Making A Difference In Chile
The Problem
The Solution
What Help Is Required?
Partner History
Location

This trip is designed to ensure making a positive difference is at the heart of your time overseas. By joining this trip you will be joining QUEST and partners Rainforest Concern together with the Chilean NGO, Parques Para Chile (Parks for Chile) to protect Chile’s  stunning rainforest and its diverse wildlife.

Making A Difference In Chile
All of our conservation and development projects have been carefully selected to provide the maximum positive impact on the communities and environments where we work. Long term partnerships with grassroots organisations, created to achieve short, medium and long term goals for each project guarantee that every team makes a lasting difference. 

A significant donation from each volunteer goes directly to the conservation of these majestic forests, supporting work while you are there and beyond. It also supports your unique chance to work hand in hand with Chilean researchers and learn from them about how to protect these precious forests.

Our prices are calculated so that you can be assured that our partners overseas are being paid fair prices and our projects are receiving significant funding so that they are sustainable in the long-term - long after you have returned home. In fact our clients have raised over £1 million directly for projects overseas. In recognition of our commitment, we were awarded Highly Commended in the Best Volunteering Organsition category of the Responsible Tourism Awards.

Through professional project managers, who source food, materials and labour locally whilst following strict environmental and ethical policies, we guarantee that together we will make a very positive difference.

The Problem
Due to the Lake District's inherent beauty, the region has become subject to extreme tourism pressure during certain periods of the year and faces issues such as logging, environmental and cultural degradation of indigenous groups. Growth and development, whilst inevitable, is encroaching on untouched areas of forest and there is the fear that this is starting to spiral out of control.

The rainforests of Chile have been reduced during the last 150 years to some 8% of their former extent by clearance for agriculture and settlement. The scale of forest clearance has left areas of pristine ancient woodland isolated and confined to the least accessible mountain and upland areas, and created a whole range of threats to biodiversity.

Despite the fact that the region is internationally recognized as a Global Conservation Hotspot, there is surprisingly little known about the ecology of the Chilean forest fauna. What is known however, is that these forests contain many species of fauna and flora found nowhere else on earth. The area is home to a variety of rare and endangered wildlife including the charismatic mountain lion, the largest woodpecker in the world, Darwin's Frog, and the Pudu, one of the smallest deer in the world.

This project aims to help protect these species and conserve this stunning part of the world. By joining this project will be working in the knowledge that you'll be making a valuable contribution to the preservation of a unique but threatened environment.

The Solution
Volunteers are desperately needed to carry out biodiversity surveys alongside researchers from top scientific institutions worldwide. The plan for 2008 is to undertake biodiversity surveys to assess species abundance and distribution within the Namoncahue Biological Corridor, and to feed this data into an electronic Geographical Information System (GIS) allowing for the development of a management plan based on scientific data collected in the field and via remote sensing (GIS). This will be a long-term initiative that has recently been awarded a very prestigious Darwin Award.

What Help Is Required?
QUEST volunteers will be working to create a picture of the distribution of flora, and temporal variation of habitat use by endemic fauna of the region. This work will include point counts and transect work as well as permanent sample plots and laser-controlled remote camera trapping of species - you will be trained on all aspects of this work when you arrive. In addition, groups will get the chance to get involved in reforestation work, wildlife surveys, construction of a native tree nursery as well as activities relating to erosion control and other restoration ecology activities.

Partner History
We have been working with partners Rainforest Concern for 10 years in Bolivia and Ecuador by providing volunteers and much needed funding. A few years ago, Peter Bennett of Rainforest Concern asked if we could also help support the Chile project and help protect high-risk land from deforestation and cattle grazing.

Parques Para Chile (PPC) was formed by a group of local ecologists who recognised the problem and set to work to preserve these endangered areas to prevent the local environment from being degraded beyond recovery. They are employing three main tactics to achieve this:

1. Purchasing threatened areas, protecting and reforesting them.
2. Working with local farmers to encourage sustainable management of their land and forests.
3. Setting up a research and training programme to involve the international scientific and conservation community to find out about the ecosystem and its biodiversity, and to bring in innovative solutions that will help generate a local culture of stewardship of natural resources.

Thanks to the support of Rainforest Concern amongst others, PPC have recently secured the purchase of one area of forest, known as Namoncahue and acquired the site for the future Centre for Biodiversity. The aim now is to reforest the cleared areas within this land, construct a research centre and, in time, purchase further plots of land which are of strategic importance for the creation of biological corridors in order to link with nearby national parks to create a viable and sustainable alternative use for these forest habitats.

Location
The project is based in the Chilean Lake District. This is a land of volcanoes, lakes, rivers, white water rapids, virgin forests, thermal springs and fantastic peaks. Volunteers will be based at the Parques Para Chile headquarters in Pichares and the nearest town Pucon is only a 30 minute drive away. Pucon lies at the foot of the Villarrica Volcano, 789 kilometres from the City of Santiago in the foothills of the Andes. Its centre is located on the southern shores of Lake Villarrica, one of the first links of a long chain of lakes in southern Chile.