The reserve headquarters is located in the village of
Chaihuin. Most of the area originally acquired (50,000 hectares) is managed as a private reserve by
TNC. The reserve is open to the public, and includes demonstration trails, various tourism opportunities run by local communities, and beaches that are highly visited in the summer time. The reserve also hosts a large number of scientific research and educational projects, serving as one of the region's focal points for ecological research and conservation. However, its protected status remains informal nearly a decade after the reserve was established because Chile does not yet have a legal framework for private protected areas. Moreover, the reserve's permanent management arrangement is unsettled, and it remains threatened by government plans to continue building the
Southern Coastal Highway which would greatly impact the Colun and Rio Bueno areas. Earlier highway construction by the Ministry of Public Works and Military's Corps of Engineers in the mid-2000s opened a penetration route through the reserve and caused severe impacts to the
Colun River estuary due to a botched (and later abandoned) attempt at a river crossing. Eighty-three percent of the reserve is categorized as
Valdivian temperate rainforest and 7.8% had previously been cleared, burned and planted with eucalyptus plantations. Some native forest types in the reserve includes olivillo
Aextoxicon punctatum that forms dense forests near the coast and alerce
Fitzroya cupressoides that grows at the higher elevations. The 9 km long
Colún Beach and the Twin Lagoons of Colún lies inside the reserve just some kilometers north of
Colún River. The lower flow of
Bueno River makes up the southern boundary of the reserve. The reserve has 36 km of coastline including beaches, rocky shores and significant estuaries. Most of this coastline currently falls within Benthic Marine Management Areas owned and managed by local fishing associations. Extensive collaboration between the reserve, local NGOs and fishing associations has yielded a pilot cooperative management agreement to study and work to recover benthic resources in one of these areas. Neighbors to the reserve include the
Huilliche indigenous community of Huiro located on the coast south of Chaihuin. The community offers a number of ecotourism services during the summer period. ==See also==