Francisco Ruiz-Tagle and Luis Felipe Gazitúa serving as Forest School guides

The company CEO and Chairman, respectively, arrived at CMPC’s Pumalal Park in Temuco in the Araucanía Region of Chile to participate in the Escuela del Bosque [Forest School] and act as guides for a group of 37 sixth graders from the Llaima School in Temuco. 

“This is a great opportunity for CMPC collaborators to join the Escuela del Bosque initiative. The forest is the soul of CMPC, which sets us apart as a company that is based on nature and the renewable product of trees. This is a very interesting initiative from the point of view of climate change and environmental protection,” commented Francisco Ruiz Tagle regarding the occasion.

Meanwhile, Luis Felipe Gazitúa, Company Chairman emphasized the forest culture and the importance of initiatives like Escuela del Bosque l. “Chile has a very significant forestry industry at the global level, so it should be a country with a much deeper forest culture. That’s why we’ve created Escuela del Bosque in the Araucanía Region with tremendous potential,” he said.

What Antonella Riquelme, a sixth grader at the Llaima School in Temuco, liked most about the activity was discovering all the nature in the area. “I liked it because we got to learn while also being in the actual forest, not just seeing pictures or reading about it in books.”

Escuela del Bosque is a CMPC initiative of the CMPC Foundation. The aim is for students to learn from the forest while in the forest itself, transferring their classroom experience to the field. Forty-four schools in the La Araucanía and Biobío Regions in the districts of Temuco, Nacimiento, Angol and Coronel have signed on to the program. More than 8,000 children participate in it, starting in 2022.