In October 2015, in Puerto Varas—the northern gateway to the Carretera Austral—the ATTA Summit was held for the primary time in Chile. Throughout this occasion, American philanthropist and conservationist Douglas Tompkins publicly launched a complete improvement technique for Chilean Patagonia based mostly on conservation. He known as it the Route of Parks of Patagonia, presenting it as an invite to view nationwide parks as engines of native economies.
At the moment, practically 10 years after that presentation, Puerto Natales, a metropolis close to Torres del Paine Nationwide Park within the Magallanes Area, is likely one of the 60 communities alongside this route and can host the ATTA assembly on October 13. This gathering is a chance to discover this inexperienced lung of the planet—a vacation spot famend for its wealthy biodiversity and the heat of its individuals.
Spanning greater than 2,800 kilometers, the Patagonia Parks Route stretches from Puerto Montt to Cape Horn, overlaying a 3rd of Chile’s territory. This huge expanse is significant in addressing local weather change and the continuing biodiversity disaster.
Nearly 20% of the route’s space consists of peatlands, which act as vital local weather regulators by storing 10 occasions extra carbon than different ecosystems. Moreover, the Northern and Southern Patagonian Ice Fields make up the world’s third-largest reserve of freshwater.
In response to knowledge from the United Nations World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), with calculations from the Nationwide Geographic Society and cartographic info offered by Tompkins Conservation Chile, the Route of Parks of Patagonia is South America’s largest carbon storage space. It shops 3 times extra carbon than the Amazon rainforest, per hectare.
The ecosystems inside the 11.8 million hectares protected by the Route retailer 6.6 billion metric tons of carbon—a mean of 558 tons per hectare. This highlights the immense contribution of the Path to mitigating local weather change.
The Route additionally boasts excessive ecological worth attributable to its temperate rainforests, subantarctic forests, wetlands, ice fields, and the planet’s most intensive system of fjords, peninsulas, and archipelagos. Its 80,000 kilometers of shoreline are dwelling to over 140 chook species and 46 species of marine and terrestrial mammals.
Past defending Chile’s pure heritage, the Route helps native communities that safeguard and thrive alongside it. These communities display how tourism can function a strategic exercise for the sustainable improvement of the three areas the Route encompasses.
A research by the Austral Patagonia Program on the Austral College of Chile estimated that an annual public funding of $8.1 million in seven nationwide parks within the Aysén Area might generate $11.1 million and 512 new jobs yearly within the area.
Equally, classes will be drawn from the USA, the place the Nationwide Park Service reported $42.5 billion in financial advantages in 2022. For each greenback invested in nationwide parks, $10 is generated in financial returns.
In Chile, this imaginative and prescient is coming to fruition with the creation of the Mesoregional Strategic Program (PEM) Route of Parks. This initiative, led by the Chilean authorities, will fund and coordinate actions to enhance the customer expertise alongside the Route.
As these figures and initiatives present, the Route of Parks of Patagonia is a testomony to the concord between ecology and society. It serves as a reminder that true prosperity depends upon being in sync with the well-being of the planet.
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