Santiago de Chile Live Cam

At the beginning of the 20th century, at the request of a North American scientific expedition, the first significant work was developed and founded within what is now the Park. It was about the construction of the Lick Observatory, today Manuel Foster of the Catholic University. To this is added, one of the most colorful works of Cerro San Cristóbal: the monument to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary located at its summit.

At the beginning of 1916 Alberto Mackenna Subercaseaux and Pedro Bannen organized a campaign whose objective was to obtain the expropriation of the hills in order to assign them to public use. In August of this same year, the then deputy Pedro Aguirre Cerda, supported by twenty-four deputies from all political sectors of the time, presented a motion to the Chamber that became law No. 3,295, published in the Official Gazette on 28 September 1917. The initiative authorized the President of the Republic, Juan Luis Sanfuentes, to accept as a donation, buy or expropriate the lands that extended from the Cerro San Cristóbal to the Santiago Forest. The law declared this space of public utility destining it to the formation of a great park that today is the 722 hectares that make up the Metropolitan Park of Santiago.

On June 17, 1918, Mayor Pablo Urzúa, together with groups of scouts, symbolically took official possession of these lands. Only the land at the top of Cerro San Cristóbal, which belongs to the Archdiocese of the Catholic Church of Santiago, was not expropriated. Between 1921 and 1928 the first major civil works were built. In July 1921 the first afforestation began in the Dominican street sector. In April of the following year, the irrigation system was delivered, work by the engineer Manual Zañartu Campín, which is used to this day. In September, the Casino Cumbre and the Casa de las Arañas were inaugurated, which did not stand the test of time. The Way to the Pyramid is also a work of this year and its inauguration was attended by the highest authorities of the country led by the President of the Republic, Arturo Alessandri, in addition to the Mayor of Santiago, Alberto Mackenna Subercaseaux, the main promoter of the development of the Park as a public space.

Bosque Santiago is the first environmental education center in the region, that is, it is the only public place to carry out educational activities, which generate an awareness of sustainable development. In this way, we have taken a new step to improve the quality of life of the inhabitants of the Metropolitan Region and providing a place where they will learn to better coexist with the natural environment. This educational center, which began to take shape in 1999, has had the strong support of the President of the Republic, the Minister of Housing, Jaime Ravinet, and private sector companies. It is located at the northern end of the Santiago Metropolitan Park, in the communes of Huechuraba and Vitacura.

In Bosque Santiago, transversal educational programs are developed on flora and fauna and native fauna, pollution and ethical values ​​of environmental culture. These objectives are carried out through guided circuits to sensitize children, youth and adults in the preservation of the environment. Bosque Santiago has a large consolidated infrastructure such as: amphitheater, shelter for teachers, educational nursery, nursery area, interpretive trails for the disabled, exhibition of Chilean fauna and 64 hectares. in the reforestation phase with native flora. It is located between 665 and 1365 meters above sea level. It is a property of 180 hectares. formed by the ravines of the southwestern sector of the Manquehue, El Carbón and San Cristóbal mountain range.