Conservationist and Chile create new parks

CHILE: Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has signed decrees creating vast new national parks using land donated by an American conservation organisation, in what is believed to be the largest private donation of land ever from a private entity to a country.

The agreement was signed yesterday by Bachelet and Kristine McDivitt Tompkins, the widow of Doug Tompkins, a founder of outdoor clothing company The North Face, who accumulated the land before his death.

It creates the new Pumalin and Patagonia national parks while expanding others to help create a ‘‘Route of Parks’' stretching more than 2400 kilometres from Puerto Montt to Cape Horn.

In all, the plan ultimately seeks to increase Chile’s national parklands by more than 40,400 square km, or 38.5 per cent.

‘‘This is not only an unprecedented preservation effort,’' Bachelet said at the signing ceremony. ‘‘It’s also an invitation to imagine other ways of rationally occupying our lands, of creating other economic activities, of using natural resources without preying on them.‘’

Tompkins Conservation, led by McDivitt Tompkins, said the area to be protected was three times the size of the United States’ Yosemite and Yellowstone national parks combined, or about the size of Switzerland.

‘‘Today is a historic day for Chile and for the world. Today, Patagonia is protected with a new network of parks,’' said Rodrigo Catalan, head of conservation at the World Wildlife Fund in Chile.

He said the new parks presented daunting challenges for conservation, including how they would be financed and how they would benefit local communities.

Since her husband’s death in a 2015 kayaking accident, McDivitt Tompkins had worked to permanently protect from development the millions of hectares the couple acquired over 25 years.

Her husband used much of his fortune to buy huge tracts of land in Patagonia. At first, his purchases drew strong opposition by local politicians, loggers, power companies and nationalists, who stirred rumours that he was trying to steal water and other resources. But he promised that he would eventually return the land to the governments of Chile and Argentina to be preserved as nature reserves or parks. – AP

PHOTO: AP Friends of the late American conservationist Doug Tompkins visit his grave in Patagonia National Park, Chile before a signing ceremony creating vast new national parks using land donated by Tompkins and his widow Kristine.