After the world’s largest private donation to Chile last year by Kris McDivitt Tompkins, widow of Douglas Tompkins, the founder of the sportswear brand “The North Face”, Chile now has a gigantic network of national parks. The Tompkins Conservation has been a great contributor to the preservation and expansion of protected zones in the country. The national park network, known as “Ruta de los Parques”, is a 2,400 km track that connects as many as 17 national parks of Chile with one another. With this donation of 40,400 km2 of land, comparable to the size of Switzerland, the total area has now grown to an impressive 10 million hectares, as we reported in our April 2017 newsletter.
In addition to attaining an incredible area of land, this increase also implicates the spread of further tourist destinations in Chile. The donation of land allowed for three new national parks to be established: the national parks Pumalin, Melimoyu und Patagonia. Furthermore, three existing national parks (Hornopirén, Corcovado and Isla Magdalena) expanded in size.
The decree implementing these projects was signed at the beginning of this year by Chilean president Michelle Bachelet and Kris McDivitt Tompkins.
If you are interested in exploring the “Route of Parks”, please contact your travelArt representative.