We believe that other storytellers should participate: it's a great opportunity to strengthen communication skills, connect with a global community and give visibility to stories that deserve to be told.
In the story “National Huemul Corridor,” storytellers Ingrid Espinoza, Liliana Guzmán, and Lorena Valenzuela of Fundación Rewilding Chile highlight the collaboration between the Chilean Government and their organization to protect and restore endangered huemul populations along the Route of Parks in Patagonia. The huemul, the world’s southernmost deer species, faces a critical situation—fewer than 1,500 individuals are estimated to survive in Chile and Argentina, distributed in small, fragmented populations. The species is classified as “Endangered” by the IUCN and Chile’s Species Classification Regulation (RCE). These populations face multiple threats from invasive species, disease from livestock, illegal hunting, dog predation, and habitat degradation. This initiative showcases their conservation efforts and raises public awareness about the huemul’s importance and need to protect its habitat, promoting actions to address these threats.
The story won the Community Choice Award in the 2024 ArcGIS StoryMaps Competition as selected by the global storytelling community.
Ingrid Espinoza, a forestry engineer from the University of Chile, has been the Director of Conservation at Fundación Rewilding Chile since 2001. She led the “Alerce 3000” restoration project in Pumalín Park and collaborated with Doug and Kris Tompkins of Tompkins Conservation on initiatives like the “Patagonia Without Dams” campaign. Her efforts resulted in the largest private land donation to a government, creating seven new national parks and expanding three others. Ingrid has also contributed to the Foundation’s marine program and is now focused on establishing the “Cabo Froward” national park in the Magellanes region.
Lorena Valenzuela, a forestry engineer from the University of Chile, has 15 years of experience in conservation, GIS work, and environmental management. She has advised the public sector and non-governmental organizations in environmental consulting and led the Road and Native Forest Program for Pumalín Park and Patagonia National Park. Currently, Lorena is an Advisor for the Conservation Program at Fundación Rewilding Chile, working directly with the Ingrid.
Liliana Guzmán, an engineer in Renewable Natural Resources from the University of Chile, specializes in spatial analysis and camera trap management. For the past five years, she has focused on wildlife dynamics and threat management. Currently, Liliana oversees data analysis from camera traps at Fundación Rewilding Chile, using the findings to inform effective wildlife conservation and management strategies.
The StoryMaps team recently sat down with Ingrid, Lorena, and Liliana to discuss their experience in wildlife conservation and communication. The following conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q. Can you tell our community a little bit about the mission of Rewilding Chile and your work as an organization?
A. Ingrid: Fundación Rewilding Chile aims to reverse species extinction and climate change by restoring ecosystems, creating, and expanding national and marine parks, and fostering connections between people and nature. As a legacy organization of Tompkins Conservation, it focuses on biodiversity conservation through the creation of national parks and ecological restoration, including reintroduction of native species. The foundation emphasizes community engagement and strives for an integrated territorial vision of Chilean Patagonia, restoring ecosystems as complete, connected systems from the mountains to sea.
Q. How does that relate specifically to the story of the huemul deer?
A. Ingrid: Faced with the crisis of species extinction and habitat loss, Fundación Rewilding Chile emphasizes large-scale species conservation in Patagonia through rewilding. This approach helps recover vegetation succession, restore trophic interactions, and improve ecosystem services by introducing key species. One significant action is creating conservation corridors.
The huemul, the southernmost deer in the world, is endangered with fewer than 1,500 individuals in Chile and Argentina. Our ecological restoration efforts focus on reducing threats such as competition with exotic species, disease from livestock, illegal hunting, and habitat loss.
In 2023, we established the Huemul National Corridor, a public-private initiative with the Rewilding Chile Foundation in conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Forestry Corporation and the Agricultural and Livestock Service. This project is an ambitious initiative that aims to extend the Foundation’s experience in huemul conservation, with the goal of reestablishing huemul populations and wildlife corridors in key conservation areas in Chilean Patagonia, involving both public and private protected lands in this immense territory. This is a reflection of how our mission translates into specific actions to restore key species such as the huemul and, at the same time, the Patagonian ecosystems it inhabits.
Q. How do you use GIS tools to achieve your goals for the organization and the wildlife corridor?
A. Lorena: As a specialist in conservation program analysis, we use GIS tools for territorial planning and strategic decision making. These tools help identify priority conservation areas and analyze connectivity between protected regions. For the Huemul National Corridor, GIS has been instrumental in mapping populations, assessing habitat connectivity, and designing conservation actions in Chilean Patagonia.
A. Liliana: As a researcher, GIS tools are essential for spatial analysis of data from our camera traps. We systematically monitor protected areas using a standard protocol, allowing us to obtain comparable data in time and space. GIS tools enable us to visualize species distribution, identify hotspots of presence and overlap with threats, and assess changes in habitat use.
Q. How did the interactivity of ArcGIS StoryMaps help you tell the story of the huemul deer?
A. Lorena: The interactivity of ArcGIS StoryMaps was fundamental to communicate visually and effectively the huemul’s critical situation and our conservation actions. One of the most relevant resources we used was the “Swipe” tool, which allows us to compare the huemul’s historical and current distributions effectively. This visualization easily generates an immediate impact on those who explore the history by showing the drastic fragmentation of the species’ geographic range.
A. Liliana: ArcGIS StoryMaps also enabled us to integrate interactive maps with territorial information of the protected areas we monitor, accompanied by photographs of the huemul in its natural habitat. This combination helps us identify where the species remains and reinforces the importance of conserving these areas, creating a dynamic and informative story that connects with the public.
Q. What features were your favorite to tell your story?
A. Ingrid: We value the ability to showcase our conservation work across the extensive territory of the Parks of Chilean Patagonia, which includes 17 national parks and their surrounding communities. Through interactive maps, you can explore this area from north to south, highlighting our efforts in huemul conservation. At each point, we integrate images from camera traps used for monitoring and conservation actions, making the presence of this elusive species visible and allowing the public to connect with it, despite its rarity.
Q. What did your storytelling process look like and how did you make decisions about narrative, visuals, and design? How are the different stakeholders on your team and partners involved in that process?
A. Ingrid: The storytelling process took months of preparation. After participating in the 2023 ArcGIS StoryMaps Competition as a finalist, we were excited to create a story about the huemul, an emblematic but fragile species. We aimed to highlight its delicate situation and significant conservation efforts in Chilean Patagonia.
A dedicated team worked on this story, ensuring clarity, accuracy, and engagement. Decisions about the visual design and structure of the story were made collaboratively, with input from communications, design, and the wildlife program director.
Q. How significant was the decision to translate this story into both English and Spanish in enhancing its accessibility? What additional steps can storytellers take to ensure that local voices are represented and heard in collaborative storytelling?
A. Ingrid: Translating the story into English and Spanish is key to increase the visitation of this story by more people interested in conservation in large territories and that it can serve as an example of some replicable actions. We wanted the local community to understand the story in Spanish and feel part of it, while also sharing the huemul’s plight and conservation efforts in Chilean Patagonia and internationally through English to generate greater awareness and support. The local voices in this story are mainly the teams executing conservation actions. For this reason, we incorporate a section on field data collection, along with photos and audio from a wildlife ranger. This ranger brings his direct experiences and knowledge of the species, recounting the discovery and monitoring of individuals over time. These authentic voices, along with those of people living near the huemul habitat, are fundamental to building collaborative histories.
Q. What were your biggest successes and challenges creating the story? Based on your experience participating in the competition in 2023 and again in 2024, why do you think other storytellers should get involved?
A. Ingrid: One of our greatest successes was to make people feel connected to the story of an endangered species—“the huemul”—through an interactive narrative that fuses maps, images, and testimonies from the territory. ArcGIS StoryMaps allowed us not only to tell the story of a species, but also to make visible the public-private collaborative effort behind each conservation action. The main challenge was to find a balance between technical language and an approachable narrative that could reach all types of audiences. In addition, it is important to participate in these events, as it allows us to show work in different territories and to make known conservation models that can be used for other initiatives.
A. Liliana: The experience of the 2023 competition was valuable and allowed us to see how other organizations presented their conservation projects, which inspired us to improve our proposal for 2024. From that experience, we learned the importance of taking care of every detail, from the design of maps to the structure of the story. That’s why we believe that other storytellers should participate: it’s a great opportunity to strengthen communication skills, connect with a global community, and give visibility to stories that deserve to be told.
Q. Do you have any final advice or thoughts for our readers?
A. Ingrid: Dare to tell your conservation stories using ArcGIS StoryMaps. Good storytelling can inspire, connect and mobilize others, and good maps help people locate and understand projects. You don’t need to be a specialist in digital tools as ArcGIS StoryMaps facilitates that process. The most important thing is to have something to say, a clear message and the commitment to share it with an interested community, for example to generate partnerships.
The most important thing is to have something to say, a clear message and the commitment to share it with an interested community, for example to generate partnerships.
Q. Is there anything else you’d like to share about the subject covered in “National Huemul Corridor”?
A. Ingrid: We want to emphasize that the Huemul National Corridor is much more than a conservation strategy for an endangered species: it represents a long-term vision that seeks to restore Patagonian ecosystems, strengthen protected areas and promote harmonious coexistence between nature and local communities. The huemul is a national symbol, but more importantly, it is an indicator of the health of our ecosystems. To protect it is to protect an entire territory.
Q. What are some other projects you’re excited about sharing with ArcGIS StoryMaps?
A. Ingrid: We are excited about the possibility of incorporating ArcGIS StoryMaps in other projects that we are actively developing. One such project is the Native Forest Restoration program, initiated in 2023, focusing on conservation and restoration in the sub-Antarctic forests present in the Brunswick Peninsula, Magallanes Region, which will become the future Cabo Froward National Park in collaboration with the State of Chile. Additionally, we are developing initiatives with satellite monitoring of the Andean Condor and Ruddy-headed Goose, both species in some category of conservation, of which we would like to visualize their movements, habitat, behaviors and threats. There are many ideas in our minds!
This featured storyteller interview was prepared as a part of the May 2025 Issue of StoryScape℠ | Mapping movement.
For more interviews and articles like this one, be sure to check out StoryScape℠, a monthly digital magazine for ArcGIS StoryMaps that explores the world of place-based storytelling — with a new theme every issue.
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