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Los Lagos Region to Have the First Regional Native Species Nursery for Reforestation

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• The new infrastructure is funded by the National Strategy on Climate Change and Vegetation Resources and its +Forests Project.

Aiming to meet the high demand for native species in the Los Lagos Region for forest and water-producing basin restoration, afforestation, and other programs, the National Forestry Corporation (CONAF) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) laid the foundation stone for the Remehue regional nursery, located in the commune of Osorno.

This new infrastructure, which will be implemented on a 1.5-hectare plot of land provided under a loan agreement by the Remehue Agricultural Research Institute (INIA), is funded by the National Strategy on Climate Change and Vegetation Resources and its +Forests Project.

This public policy instrument seeks to mitigate and/or minimize the potential negative impacts of climate change on the environment and people. At the same time, it aims to maximize benefits for the local communities involved in its implementation through projects related to afforestation, restoration, preventive forestry for wildfires, and other measures for more sustainable management of native forests, with a focus on women, indigenous peoples, and individuals from socioeconomically vulnerable sectors.

With an approximate investment of over 800 million pesos, the plant production from this nursery will be distributed across all provinces of the region (Osorno, Llanquihue, Chiloé, and Palena). Thus, it will become CONAF's primary and only nursery producing and supplying native plants sourced from the region.

Eve Crowley, FAO Representative in Chile, stated that "since 2020, FAO has been working with CONAF on the implementation of the +Forests Project, carrying out reforestation activities in 6 regions of the country, including the Los Lagos Region. Through this project, we have funded this first regional nursery in the commune of Osorno, which will not only provide approximately 290,000 native plants annually (starting from the third year) to the entire region but also top-tier facilities for the operation and production of these species. Additionally, these new facilities represent an opportunity to create temporary and permanent jobs for specialized labor, which benefits the population of Osorno Province."

Meanwhile, CONAF Regional Director Miguel Ángel Leiva highlighted that this nursery will allow "supplying the entire region with plants for the community, public squares, green area projects, reforestation, restoring burned forests, and more. We thank INIA, with whom we signed an agreement, for providing 1.5 hectares to carry out this project. We are also very grateful to FAO for their constant support—they are our backbone—and of course, this information is very important for the entire Los Lagos Region."

For her part, Tania Salas, Los Lagos Regional Minister of Agriculture, emphasized that this project is highly important for the development and conservation of native forests, which in turn contributes significantly to improving people's quality of life.