MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Natural forest controversy

Chilean environmentalist groups with American financial support are interested in purchasing extensive natural forests tracks in Tierra del Fuego belonging to a frustrated woods exploitation project, according to Punta Arenas Prensa Austral.

However local officials are not so enthusiastic and are complaining about the expansion of foreign environmentalists, who with "logistic support from local Chilean groups is purchasing more and more Chilean land".

The operation involves several hundred thousand acres of land, mostly covered with original forest, and significant funds including an 850,000 US dollars debt owed by Forestal Savia, the company involved in the wood exploitation project.

Forestal Savia began activities in the mid nineties but successive appeals from environmentalist groups contrary to the cutting mainly of trees almost a century old prevented the project from advancing. The company manages almost 200,000 acres of forest in Argentine Tierra del Fuego and another 700,000 acres in the Chilean side.

When the Forestal Savia "Río Cóndor" project was first announced, local elected authorities saw it as a new source of employment and openly supported the project.

But with employment prospects plummeting those same elected officials are now pressing the Chilean government for support to purchase the land back and avoid "foreign environmentalist groups from taking over pristine unique forests in strategic areas, such as the Beagle Channel", which will eventually be out of bounds for Chileans.

"Who will be able to visit those forests?, only people with money, foreigners not the average Chilean", argues the Mayor of Porvenir, Sylvia Vera, adding that Chile already has the experience of the Douglas Tompkins Pumalín Park, and recent acquisitions by the Yendegaia Foundation.

Mr. Tompkins is a rich American who a few years ago purchased almost two million acres of natural forest in the Lakes Region turning the area into a private park. Similarly the Yendegaia Foundation presided by Adriana Hoffman that has already acquired 70,000 acres of insular territory in the extreme south of Chile.

Santiago press reports this week indicated that a gathering of local Chilean environmentalist groups with apparently funds from the American organization Nature Conservancy have targeted the "Río Cóndor" project land. But the report also points out that regional officials are also pressing Santiago to recover the land by demanding payment of the outstanding debt.