Francisco Moreno’s heart was pounding. His hands were shaking. His face shone with cold sweat. He wanted to whisper a prayer for luck, but he stayed silent. The festival swirled around him and his friend. Everybody was paying attention to the food, the drinks, the bright clothing in the firelight—not them. Slowly, they stepped backward into the darkness.

Time to move.

They dodged from shadow to shadow, staying low. A noise. Had they been spotted? They couldn’t afford to check. Only 50 more feet to go—30—10. The horse flicked her tail as the men ducked behind her. Moreno pulled his poncho over his head, tied it behind the horse, and swung onto her back. His friend jumped on too. With a kick to her ribs, the horse took off galloping toward the horizon. Moreno glanced backward. The poncho dragged behind them, covering their tracks. He squinted his eyes against the frigid Patagonian wind and smiled. They would not die tonight.

This was a tale Francisco Moreno would tell about his adventures in Patagonia—a region that spans Argentina and Chile. Moreno would play an important role in South America’s conservation story. Patagonia was a land he loved, and he would do what he could to protect it.

One by one, he started collecting his favorites. By the time he was 14, he had created a small museum in his home in Buenos Aires, Argentina. By the time he was 21, he wanted something more, something new. He wanted to draw the first maps of unexplored lands.

Moreno was in luck. Hundreds of miles south of Buenos Aires, Patagonia sprawled across the tip of South America—and it was just waiting to be explored. Many Europeans had tried, of course. The problem was that most didn’t get far before they gave up. The dry wind, stony ground, and harsh temperatures defeated them.

Moreno was different. He set out on his first expedition in 1874, and he was fascinated. Was Patagonia a desert? Yes. But it was far from empty. Eagles wheeled through the huge sky overhead. Penguins, armadillos, mountain lions, and poisonous snakes made their homes here. So did groups of Indigenous people. Patagonia was not a new land to be discovered. The Indigenous population held ancient knowledge about its deserts, steppes, lakes, and mountains. Many of their ancestors had lived in the region for thousands of years.

Fossil after fossil told the story of Patagonia’s past. Moreno noticed it all. He befriended the Native chiefs; he collected specimens for natural history museums; he claimed territory for Argentina. By the time he went home, he was already planning how to go back.

Over the next six years, Moreno went on three more journeys through Patagonia. Sometimes these journeys went badly. Starvation loomed. A mountain lion attacked him on the banks of a river. The Argentinian military was pushing Indigenous groups off their native lands; one of these groups captured Moreno and hoped they could use him to bargain. His midnight horseback escape
was the only reason he wasn’t killed.

Sometimes, though, the journeys went well—like one day when Moreno was trekking through the Andes Mountains. Up and over a peak he climbed. What he saw took his breath away. Later on, he wrote about the “marvelous scenery of the lakes and torrents, the giant jungles, the abrupt mountain, and the eternal ice” that he remembered. This oasis in the desert was Nahuel Huapi Lake. He was one of the first explorers to ever reach it.

When Moreno arrived home from his last expedition, his face was scarred with claw marks. His notebooks were full of observations. But most importantly, he had become Argentina’s expert on anything and everything Patagonia.

As it turns out, Argentina wasn’t the only country interested in Patagonia. The desert spread so far toward the Pacific that it reached into Chile. This raised a question: Where did Argentina end and Chile begin?

As Moreno traveled, Chile and Argentina argued about the borders of their countries. They had to come to an agreement. This process took every drop of politeness the neighboring countries had for each other. It also took a year. Then another. And another. Eventually, the politeness ran out, and the negotiations became tense and rude.

They had to call in someone from Great Britain to hear both sides and help them reach a final decision. Argentina and Chile each selected an expert to settle the debate once and for all. Chile sent Hans Steffen, a geographer. Argentina sent Moreno. With Great Britain’s help, they finally came to a decision: the new border would follow the toothy, snowcapped Andes as they trailed off to the south. To thank Moreno, Argentina gave him a gift: thousands of acres of land around Nahuel Huapi Lake.

Moreno remembered when he first looked down on that lake. It had been almost 30 years since he had seen it for the first time. So much had changed. Now, Argentina was in the middle of occupying Patagonia.

During his travels, Moreno had worked for the government and supported its goal to develop the region. He’d always hoped his explorations would clear the way for colonization; however, he didn’t approve of how it was happening.

The government was ignoring the common Argentinians. Even worse, it was ignoring the Indigenous Peoples of Patagonia, those whose land had been taken. Soon, very few of Patagonia’s original peoples would live on their ancestral lands. To Moreno, it seemed like the government was thinking only of its richest citizens. And the single thing these citizens wanted? To get even richer.

Moreno wanted everyone to enjoy the beauty of Patagonia and for it to be preserved for future generations. Slowly, an idea took shape. He pulled a chair up to his desk and wrote a letter addressed to the government. In his letter, he gave part of his new land back. But Moreno had one condition. They needed to use it to preserve the land for future generations, “following the example set by the United States and other nations who possess superb natural parks.” In 1903, the idea of South America’s first national park was born. About 19 years later, Nahuel Huapi Lake became part of Argentina’s National Southern Park.

Moreno took his last trip to Nahuel Huapi Lake in 1913. He had a guest of honor: Theodore Roosevelt, who had finished his second term as President of the United States. They had plenty to talk about; Roosevelt was a great champion for America’s national parks and was delighted to have a guide who shared his love of nature.

When Moreno died seven years later, his legacy kept growing. A glacier and a national park were named in his honor. In 1934, the Argentinian government created the Dirección de Parques Nacionales—the first national parks service in Latin America. Under it, Nahuel Huapi Lake was protected as its very own national park.

Moreno believed in and advocated for national parks, but these parks leave behind a complicated legacy. In the beginning, conservation was not the government’s main concern. South American countries established national parks along their borders to stake their claim on land. As a result, Indigenous Peoples who called this region home were displaced, and many died defending
their home.

As the years passed, national parks multiplied, and their purposes evolved. They brought tourists, who brought money. The parks were also the keys to conservation, preserving beauty and biodiversity as deforestation crept across the continent.

Today, South America has over 300 national parks, with 27 in Patagonia alone. And all of these started due to the influence of Francisco Moreno, a man whose curiosity and love of the outdoors led him on a lifetime of adventures.