10/15/2025
Luisa Valenzuela (slide 7, left), an environmental advocate in the Biobío region of southcentral Chile, vividly recalls the moment she found her calling. It was a spring day 18 years ago when, from the doorstep of her home in Hualpén, she watched a pair of ducks flap their wings desperately at a truck illegally dumping debris into the Vasco Da Gama-Chimalfe, a wetland that abuts her neighborhood. She suspected the birds were protecting their eggs or chicks. “That day I promised the wetland that I would become the voice for the species that live there,” she says.
For decades, wetlands in the communities of Hualpén, Concepción, Talcahuano, and Penco were considered worthless land. Development advanced over them, filling them in to make way for roads, ports, Carriel Sur International Airport, and industrial zones. Yet these ecosystems play important roles. They help mitigate climate change by storing carbon. They regulate ecological balance: After Chile’s devastating 2010 earthquake, the Rocuant-Andalién wetland in Talcahuano buffered the impact of the resulting tsunami. And even though they are diminished, their diverse habitats—which includes marshes, swamps, riparian zones, and estuaries—support an array of coastal and marshland bird species.
Today, the Americas Flyway Initiative is working to revitalize the wetlands and facilitate 30 nature-based economic development projects that protect and restore critical ecosystems by 2050.
Read the full story online and in print in the Fall Issue of Audubon Magazine, which also includes photography by . 📷 Photos and videos by Sydney Walsh /Audubon