Stunning New National Park Opening in 2 Years on the 'Edge of the World'

Soon, there will be a brand new national park ripe for exploration as the Chilean government is officially moving to protect 200,000 hectares of remote Patagonian coastline and forest to create the country’s 47th national park.

Located on the Brunswick Peninsula, the Cape Froward National Park is expected to open in two years. Sitting at the southern tip of the Americas, where South America meets Antarctica, the area has been called "the edge of the world."

'Wildest Place I Have Ever Walked Through'

The area, which includes a wildlife corridor that stretches 1,700 miles, features forests, peatlands, and glaciers.

Benjamín Cáceres of Rewilding Chile, a nonprofit conservation foundation involved with the project, told Reuters that the region is a "mosaic of marine, coastal and land ecosystems."

“I have been to many exceptional places, and I can tell you that the Cape Froward project is the wildest place I have walked through,” said Kristine Tompkins, the renowned US conservationist at the heart of the project, via The Guardian.

“It’s one of the few truly wild forest and peak territories left in the country, and the richness of the Indigenous history in the region makes a case for these territories to be preserved for all time.”

The goal is to preserve both the biodiversity and the history of the area at the same time.

“This mosaic of ecosystems is tremendously important,” Cáceres told The Guardian. “The bogs and subantarctic forests are incredibly fragile, and the cultural legacy of the Kawésqar territory, the era of explorers, then whalers; all of this history and biodiversity will be preserved in some form in the future national park.”

San Isidro Lighthouse

Within the new national park will sit the San Isidro lighthouse, which is one of seven lighthouses designed and built by the Scottish architect George Slight along the Strait of Magellan.

The lighthouse was abandoned in the 1970s and fell into disrepair. Now, however, it has new life as a museum of the natural and human history of the area.

“My father was always a dreamer,” Cáceres said. “When he found out about an abandoned lighthouse all those years ago, he brought us here as a family to dream with him – and that’s where this story began for me.”

Along with a cafe on the beach below, the lighthouse will now become the entry point for the new national park, which is set to open in two years.

If you'd like to take a peek at the beauty of the new national park, Reuters published an extensive photo gallery highlighting its stunning natural beauty.