The story
CONAF was created on 13 May 1970, as the "Reforestation Corporation" or COREF (Corporación de Reforestación'). In 1972 it acquired its current powers, structure and name. In 1976 it adopted Forestín, a coypu, as its mascot.
In 1984, under Chilean law Nº 18,348, a move was made to modify the private corporation status of CONAF and make it a government agency.
In October 2012 the Chilean senate considered and rejected a proposal to convert CONAF's legal nature from that of a "private corporation" to that of a public (government) agency. The rejected proposal would have created a National Forest Service (Servicio Nacional Forestal). During the legislative proceedings, testimony was made that addressed the "anomalous" nature of a private corporation performing functions that should be performed by a wholly government agency or agencies. However, as of November 2014, such a status change has not taken place.
From Wikipedia’s article on National Forest Corporation, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4