Tierra del Fuego

Nature is Imagination

The Tierra del Fuego National Park protects 63,000 hectares of the Southern tip of the Andes from North of Lake Kami to the coast of the Beagle Channel in Argentina. Its lush forests, waterfalls, lakes, mountains and glaciers make it one of the most interesting parks in the world.

Here you find dramatic landscapes with green foliage and white snow-capped mountains surrounding the Lapataia Bay and Lake Roca. The park has over 90 species of birds, the somewhat amusing Guanaco and other mammals like the Andean Fox together with many kilometres of hiking trails winding between Antarctic Beech, Lenga and Coihue trees.

The most interesting feature of this harsh landscape is peat bogs. Bogs are dead plant material or peat that gradually accumulated over centuries and function as a carbon sink preventing carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere. This makes them a great contributor to carbon offsetting worldwide. Peat bogs also store fresh water and is an important source of fresh water for Ushuaia, the most southern town in the world.

However, in the 1940’s, 25 Canadian Beavers were introduced to the area to generate a commercial fur trade industry and today their population has exploded to over 200,000. With their impressive damn building skills they have become a threat to this fragile ecosystem and the National Parks board are working hard to find solutions to maintain their numbers also known as the Beaver War in the Land of Fire (Tierra del Fuego).

Tierra del Fuego

Photos and content by Tharien Pieterse, ForestNation Ambassador and Founder and travel writer at Travel Muti.