Several weeks ago ABC's Nightline did a program on the
Chilean Salmon Industry. Well, tonight they are focusing again on southern Chile's 800,000 acres of virgin wilderness. The following is pieced together from the
ABC news story. (Click on any picture for a larger view)
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Pumalin Park (
MAP) is one of the most remote places on Earth.It's where the snow capped Andes Mountains tumble spectacularly into the sea.
Where rivers roar with glacial waters. Where 3,000-year-old Alerce trees strain for the sky. Where sea lions rule from their perch on the rocky coast. And where an American millionaire
Doug Tompkins (63) and his wife, Kristine have bought every acre the eye can see. Their mission: preserve this magnificent landscape forever. And as much wilderness as their money can buy. Tompkinses have single-handedly decided to devote their wealth to preserving as much wilderness as they can. They began assembling land here in Southern Chile in 1991. Not only did he buy land, but also active volcanoes, glaciers and dozens of lakes. South America may be the only place where land like this can be bought on a scale like this.
Doug is an experienced bush pilot, an avid outdoorsman,
but that's just the beginning of his resume. He made his millions — a lot of them — in the apparel industry in San Francisco, as founder of
The North Face, which manufactures adventure and travel gear, and
Esprit clothing lines. He abandoned it all 16 years ago to preserve a patch of this planet. A very big patch. Kris Tompkins is also a refugee from the apparel industry: She was CEO of
Patagonia Sportswear.
Most of Pumalin, a 400,000-acre parcel, was purchased from 150 heirs of a Spanish conquistador who was deeded the land almost 500 years ago.
With deep conviction, and even deeper pockets, Doug and Kris have assembled land for conservation on a scale never seen before. Pumalin is now just the biggest of 13 parks they have created in Chile and in Argentina.
Together the Tompkinses have bought almost 2.5 million square acres of land, about the size of the states of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. They've already gifted two parks, one in Chile and one in Argentina, so their current holdings are about 2 million acres or 3,300 square miles for 15 million dollars.
In this isolated region with chronic poverty, Doug is creating his own utopian world — a South American Walden Pond where natural splendor is complimented by handcrafted beauty.
No detail too small: paths made of stone, fences of twigs, signs hand-carved, public campgrounds immaculate. And nine Hobbit-like cabins for visitors. Pumalin isn't just about preserving wilderness, it is about living in harmony with nature.
Doug is intense, driven, obsessive and self-deprecating. He is a curious fusion of
Henry David Thoreau and
Charles Lindberg with
Martha Stewart's eye for detail. But at his core, he is a deeply committed environmentalist.
"What I was doing was negative," Doug said of his time in the apparel industry, "in terms of creating false desires for products that nobody needed. I got more interested in environmentalism and conservationism, so consequently I felt that I'd rather be on the side of improving things, rather than making things worse. It wasn't something that happened from one day to the next, it was a long transition. I think I see the world better today than I did before."
He admits that there is more than a little irony to this point. The very industry that he now damns is the source of the vast fortune that has allowed him to do this kind of work.
The notoriety has made Doug as famous in Chile as, say, Donald Trump is in the United States — although Doug probably wouldn't like the comparison. "There is not one Chilean who doesn't know who Tompkins is," Chilean journalist, Osses Suarez said. "Some people think Tompkins is a 'crazy gringo.' They cannot conceive how someone with so much wealth would come here and buy a forest and not exploit it."
The Tompkinses' parks have been attacked repeatedly here and in Argentina, but the latest crisis in Pumalin may be the most serious yet: a new push to connect
the national highway.Chile is a long, narrow country, and Pumalin sits in the narrowest part of the country, crossing its entire width from the Argentine border to the ocean and literally cutting Chile in two.
The problem: The national highway — actually a dirt road — literally ends where Pumalin begins. It's a rough, rocky 50-mile ferry ride around Pumalin. The only other option is to drive into neighboring Argentina and back. Which is why now there is enormous pressure to push a road right through the heart of Pumalin.
Carving the highway through the Andes would cost hundreds of millions of dollars; it would require snowy mountain passes and tunnels miles long, perhaps a hundred miles of driving to cross 50 miles of park. Yet in this very poor, very remote region of this developing country it has become a question of national sovereignty for some.
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Click
HERE for to see picture galleries called "
A Spectacular Wilderness" & "
Pumalin Park: A Private Paradise".
Also
HERE for a video called "Vacation in the Wilderness"
Watch Jeffrey Kofman's full report online
HERE.
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My Thoughts:-While I admire what Doug and his wife are doing, philanthropy is not the answer to the world's biggest problem. The answer to the world's biggest problem (sin) is Jesus Christ (Savior of the World).
-While Doug and his wife went to Chile to "retire", our family is going there to work.
"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:19-21 ESV
