By Petro Kotzé For more than 200 million years, the ancient Valdivian Temperate Forest in southwestern Chile has been a refuge for plant and animal species found nowhere else on Earth. This global biodiversity hotspot is home to monkey puzzle trees (Araucaria araucana), the endangered chinchilla (Chinchilla lanigera), threatened southern pudu (Pudu puda) — the world’s smallest deer — and two critically endangered species: the Juan Fernández firecrown (Sephanoides fernandensis), a hummingbird, and the northern Darwin’s frog (Rhinoderma rufum). But that’s not all. The guina (Leopardus guigna), t…