Wealthy Activist Donates 1 Million Acres to Chile for Parks

Billionaire environmentalist Douglas Tompkins has outlined plans to turn over about 1 million acres of Chilean wilderness to the country’s government on the condition that it turned into national parks, reports The Santiago Times.

Mr. Tompkins and his wife, Kristine, former heads of the Esprit and Patagonia clothing labels, live in Chile and have been buying up huge tracts of land in the mountainous Patagonia region for conservation purposes, putting a sometimes controversial face on “eco-philanthropy” in the South American nation.

Mr. Tompkins has made similar donations in recent months and opposed big industrial projects in Patagonia. Francisco Squeo, a professor at the Universidad de La Serena in Coquimbo, Chile, and a biodiversity researcher, said the country needs stronger environmental protection but that developing new national parks is a costly approach.

“Paths, guards, huts, all this costs money, money that the government will have to pay,” Mr. Squeo said. “And right now [Chile] only budgets about a fourth of what [most] other countries do for national parks and nature reserves.”