Fundación Tierra Austral was founded in 2012 as one of Chile’s first land trusts. Our organization is dedicated to working with private landholders and other public and private stakeholders to create practical tools and strategies that help landowners take voluntary action to protect the conservation values inherent to their properties.
Since its inception, Tierra Austral has focused on creating a secure and enforceable legal land conservation agreement for private landowners. During its early years as a private, non-profit organization, Tierra Austral adapted an existing Chilean law into the Servidumbre de Conservación agreement.
Tierra Austral is currently focused on working with different private landowners across the country, and on protecting other properties by exercising the Derecho Real de Conservación.
A Land Trust is a non-profit entity whose mission is conserving biodiversity, and/or its related cultural or social values. It is aimed at land stewardship, i.e., ensuring that nature in a particular area or region is protected effectively and in the long term.
Tierra Austral also played a critical role in the passage of Chile’s breakthrough private lands conservation law, the Derecho Real de Conservación (DRC), which has now become our most important tool for protecting private lands. The DRC enables landowners to enter into long-term private lands conservation legal agreements that are modeled on Conservation Easements in the United States and Canada and Conservation Covenants in Australia.
Protecting the ecological, scenic and cultural value of nature in Chile, engaging the private sector in the conservation of natural resources, by using legal tools and incentives so that landowners adopt voluntary measures to protect their environmental heritage, thus promoting the sustainable management of productive lands and fostering public awareness of the importance of biodiversity conservation.
Being a dynamic and cooperative force in conserving and maintaining ecosystems, open spaces and sustainable productive lands in all regions of Chile. Being a recognized national leader in the development of new practical tools for voluntary land conservation and sustainable land management by private landowners, providing tools to protect the fragile ecosystems of scenically striking regions and landscapes, respecting and protecting cultural traditions, including the sustainable management of forests and agricultural lands.