CONAF and Rapa Nui

National Forestry Corporation · SNASPE · five decades on the island

CONAF manages Chile’s protected areas, forests, and wildfires. Short history in Chile and how it connected to Rapa Nui National Park.

CONAF in Chile

CONAF grew out of the Corporación de Reforestación (COREF), created on 13 May 1970. Decrees in 1973 reorganised it into today’s Corporación Nacional Forestal, a private-law corporation under the Ministry of Agriculture.

Its statutory roles include sustainable forestry, wildfire prevention and response, and administering Chile’s National System of State-Protected Wild Areas (SNASPE)—national parks, reserves, and related designations spanning millions of hectares.

For decades CONAF rangers, planning tools, and fire programmes shaped how Chileans experience protected nature from Patagonia to the high Andes.

Clear water flowing over stones in a forest stream.

CONAF and Easter Island (historically)

Rapa Nui National Park was declared in 1935 (DS 103) and later reshaped; the current boundaries are in DS 72 of 20 March 1995. For many years CONAF was the face of on-the-ground park administration.

CONAF maintained visitor infrastructure, ranger coordination with other authorities, baseline environmental information, and the park’s place inside SNASPE while tourism to the island grew.

Social mobilisation by the Rapa Nui people, together with Chile’s evolving indigenous consultation rules, led to co-administration with Ma’u Henua in 2016 and the 2018 concession granting the community primary management responsibility.

Role on the island today

After 2018 Ma’u Henua runs day-to-day park operations under concession. CONAF continues to exist as Chile’s national protected-areas authority; Rapa Nui National Park remains within SNASPE, and state portals still publish CONAF technical information about the unit.

Practical cooperation—training, monitoring, wildfire preparedness where relevant—can continue in parallel with community-led tourism services, depending on agreements between institutions.

From public sources: CONAF unit page, UNESCO/Wikipedia summaries, Chilean releases (2015–2018), Ma’u Henua visitor channels. For binding text, read decrees and contracts.