The Legislature of Chubut unanimously approved yesterday the Natural Monuments Law, a legal tool that recognizes and protects seven emblematic species of its biodiversity. More than a norm, it is a pact between science, politics, and territory.
This determination turns the southern giant petrel, the Commerson’s dolphin, the leopard shark, the sei whale, the humpback whale, the South American sea lion, and the white-headed steamer duck into legal and cultural symbols. It is the first time that the province embraces this legal figure for its most representative fauna and flora, outlining a new conservation horizon that not only seeks to protect, but also to educate and transform.
The new natural pantheon
The new Provincial Natural Monuments are seven, and each contributes a story, a landscape, and a function within the ecosystem. The humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), with its epic migrations of 25 thousand kilometers, will no longer be just a tourist attraction: it is now also a legal emblem. Along with it, the law protects the sei whale, the South American sea lion, the southern giant petrel, the Commerson’s dolphin, the white-headed steamer duck, and the leopard shark.
There is no improvisation in the list. Aguilera explains it precisely: “The selection was rigorous and also collective. It was based on scientific criteria, conservation diagnoses and a deep territorial knowledge. They are species with high ecological value, many of them threatened, endemic, or key to the functioning of the marine-coastal ecosystem. But they are also part of our identity, of the landscape that defines us and of the future we want to protect.
Natural Monuments: a figure that protects and transforms
The Governor of Chubut Ignacio Torres declared at the law presentation event held in the legislature “we want to set an example of protecting our flora and fauna.”
Designating species as Natural Monuments is not just about shielding them from harm: it is about telling a different story. “It is elevating them to the status of provincial symbols. That is to say: this is untouchable, this represents us, this unites us,” says Aguilera. “It is declaring that this species not only inhabits our territory, but also our common sense, our history, and our projection.”
The law not only prohibits hunting, capture, or trade of these species; It also obliges the provincial State to generate specific management plans, population monitoring, environmental education campaigns, and, perhaps most ambitiously, cooperation with other provinces and the Nation to protect these species beyond administrative borders.
“Many of these species, such as the humpback whale or the southern giant petrel, transcend our borders. That is why article 6 of the law expressly promotes interjurisdictional cooperation,” says Aguilera. “Chubut is willing to lead, but also to integrate into a larger strategy.”
Natural Monuments, science in service of care
Far from empty romanticism, the law was built with feet on the ground and the head on data. “The project was nourished by scientific research, conservation diagnoses, field observations, management experiences, and contributions from specialists,” says the deputy. “The entire framework of the project has technical support. There is no improvisation: there is evidence.”
Scientists specialists in each of these species and Rewilding Argentina contributed their knowledge and experience in ecological restoration, monitoring, and environmental education. The law also seeks to establish a Provincial Registry of Natural Monuments, where the conservation status of each species, their threats, and ongoing protection strategies will be documented. It is about institutionalizing care, so that it does not depend on isolated wills, but on permanent policies.
A pedagogy of the landscape
Behind the letter of this law, there is a profound intention: educate the gaze. Change people’s relationship with their environment. “Laws not only regulate: they also educate,” says Aguilera. “Transforming a species into a Natural Monument changes how the community perceives it: it is no longer a resource, it is a heritage. And what is felt as one’s own, is cared for more.”
And that is where conservation touches the cultural. Because naming is recognizing, making visible. And if a community can see a Commerson’s dolphin not just as a cute creature, but as a part of its heritage, perhaps it will also reconsider how it lives in that territory. “Protection begins with the gaze,” says Aguilera. And this law, in a way, seeks to teach us to look better.
Chubut, a model under construction
Chubut is already a national reference in protected areas. With this law, it wants to take a step further: “moving from protecting territories to protecting biological identities,” as Deputy Aguilera says. It is not only about preserving spaces, but about safeguarding connections. The province aims to position itself as a leader in the design of federal biodiversity policies and is doing so through legislation, but also through sensitivity.
