With these goals in mind, a group of Chilean and international ecologists have decided to take the first steps toward the establishment of a new academic institution in southern South America, the Institute of Ecological Research ChiloŽ (IIECH). This institute is conceived as an open research center that will encourage scientists to communicate their findings to the public and other professionals, and to develop research programs to solve local and regional environmental problems.

The institute is based in the heart of the temperate forest region of southern South America, on the Island of ChiloŽ, Chile. In addition to being the geographical center of the temperate forest region, the ChiloŽ archipelago and its neighboring mainland currently represent a zone of transition between increasingly human-impacted landscapes towards the north, and almost pristine ecosystems towards the south.

The ChiloŽ region was described as nearly pristine in Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle. Most severe land cover changes have occurred only in the past 50-100 years, due to expansion of the agricultural frontier and large scale deforestation around human settlements. The southern half and coastal ranges of the Island still hold large expanses of undisturbed, primary forest.

A major research focus of the IIECH are the temperate forest ecosystems of southern South America. These forests are isolated from other forest formations within South America by large orographic and climatic barriers. As a consequence, austral forests have evolved a rich and largely endemic biota. Some community and ecosystem properties, such as the importance of plant-animal interactions for plant reproductive processes, the high nutrient retention within forested watersheds, and the chemically pristine quality of freshwater, air, and soils also seem remarkable among temperate forests of the world.

In the last decade, however, scientists and environmentalists alike have expressed great concern for the survival of the southern forest ecosystems, in the face of high rates of deforestation, species losses, and particularly, large scale substitution of native forests by monocultures of exotic pines and eucalyptus associated with commercial forestry. The Institute expects to contribute to change this trend, by promoting sustainable forestry practices based on scientific knowledge, and increasing the appreciation of the value of native ecosystems by local people.

With respect to its culture, ChiloŽ Island has maintained a restricted connection to the mainland since the Spanish Conquest, broken only in recent decades by the ferry service and the construction of major roads. This limited contact has determined the conservation and development of a peculiar and deeply rooted Hispanic-Latin American tradition.

In addition, some sectors of the ChiloŽ archipelago are sill inhabited by indigenous people (Huilliches), descendants of the pre-Hispanic inhabitants of the region, and keepers of a rich legacy of knowledge of their natural environment . The subsistence of these long-lasting traditions, together with the new relations established between modern society and the environment, provide an opportunity to examine how the social and cultural circumstances influence the relationship between people and their land.