Down a Slippery Slope?(Mapuche Puel open Batea Mahuida ski center, Argentina)(Brief Article)

Jose Miguel Puel is not your typical resort executive. As Argentina's Batea Mahuida ski center opens its second season, Puel frets that the tourists will disturb the area's serenity. If the dormant volcano the resort is named after gets angry, he says, "it will open its arms and destroy everything."

Then again, Batea Mahuida is no typical ski resort. Puel is the lonko, or chief, of the Mapuche Puel, a group of native Argentines who run the project, deep in the heart of an indigenous reserve. The Mapuche ("People of the Earth") revere the environment, asking the earth permission before crossing a river or mountain. Said Abel Carlos Balda, who helped designed Argentina's leading ski centers and the only outsider on the project, "I had to threaten to quit before they agreed to build a security road. They wouldn't cut down a single tree."

Despite the Mapuche's low-key approach, the number of visitors to Batea Mahuida has exceeded expectations, vindicating the community's decision to open its arms to the descendants of the Spanish invaders, or Huincas. Partly out of guilt for past abuses, the Huincas have provided valuable backing for the venture, including $100,000 in government grants. The resort has plenty of potential; past persecution drove the Mapuche into one of the few areas in the region with snow virtually all winter. And from the top of Batea Mahuida there are stunning views of the lakes, mountains and volcanoes stretching away into Chile.

Although the resort's 22 employees earn only about $250 a month, Samuel Puel, one of the lonko's nephews, is convinced his new job as driver of the resort's snowmobile is better than the occasional construction or forestry work he was doing before. "The way it's going now, things will be much better in the future... This is going to be ...