Five national parks have been created to preserve areas in Patagonia, Chile.
The five parks, comprised of 10.3m acres of land, were acquired by philanthropists Doug Tompkins and Kristine McDivitt Tompkins to donate to the government of South America. The conservation efforts to be done within the parks were signed into law by Chilean president Michelle Bachelet.
“This is not just an unprecedented act of preservation,” said Bachelet to The Guardian. “It is an invitation to imagine other forms to use our land. To use natural resources in a way that does not destroy them. To have sustainable development – the only profitable economic development in the long term.”
McDivitt Tompkins, the ex-CEO of Patagonia, an outdoors company, has spent over 25 years working on conserving vast expanses of land in Chile. The existence of these national parks is the latest of the myriad of environmental protection laws that Chile has been pushing forward in recent years.
“All of us who love the earth can see how the threats to wild places and creatures are growing,” said Tompkins. “This is crucial work – it’s the work we’ve been doing for decades.”
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