FEB 13 CHILE NOW HAS THE WORLD'S LARGEST NATIONAL PARK

FEB 13  CHILE NOW HAS THE WORLD'S LARGEST NATIONAL PARK

It's been awhile since we've heard from Chilean President Michelle Bachelet. So it was great to see her make such a splash last week with her amazing announcement. She proclaimed the founding of five new National Parks, the expansion of three others and the creation of a gargantuan nature reserve...the size of which the world has never seen. Once added together, it will be over ten million square miles...about the size of Switzerland.

"Chile is still a developing country," Ms. Bachelet explained "If WE can take gigantic environmental measures...there are few reasons why developed nations cannot act as well." Michelle brings up a good point. Normally, South American nations are doing just the opposite. They slash and burn rain forests to free up land for cash crops. The method produces instant capital, which is the only way to survive in today' harsh world economic climate.

So you'd think it would be economic suicide for a developing nation NOT to exploit their natural resources. Instead, Chile is following a new path to prosperity: Eco-tourism. Pioneered by Costa Rica twenty years ago, creating and maintaining treasured rain forest reserves has evolved into a profitable enterprise. Since 2002, visitors to Chile has increased 500% to six million annually. Michelle knows this and hopes to bring even more people to Patagonia.

Speaking of Patagonia, this blog now takes a funny twist. One tenth of the land used to create the nature reserves was made possible by a donation from Kristine McDivitt Tompkins. (Not exactly a Chilean name, is it?) Actually, she is the former head of the outdoor apparel giant Patagonia. In 1973, she helped turn a small clothing line into a billion dollar company. Since 2000, the CEO has been honoring the namesake of their success by purchasing and preserving parts of Patagonia in both Chile and Argentina. Cool, huh?

While it will take years before the new parks officially open, we here at the DUNER BLOG salute Michelle and Kristine. It's easy to tout environmentalism in a speech, but it's a completely different ballgame to set aside ten million square miles for a nature reserve. If the earth is to survive our never-ending population increase, it becomes imperative we save precious lands to sustain the environment. Oddly, here in the US, our president is currently shrinking our national parks. Sad.