In 2004, the New York-based investment bank Goldman Sachs helped create the 295,000-hectare (729,000-acre) Karukinka Park on the Chilean side of Tierra del Fuego. The bank acquired the land as a distressed asset from the U.S.-based Trillium timber company, which had planned to harvest the area’s forests of lenga, a type of beech tree, but met with environmental opposition and ultimately defaulted on some debts. Rather than selling or developing the land, Goldman donated it to the international nonprofit Wildlife Conservation Society and pledged US$12 million to help protect it as a private park. The park, whose name means “Our Earth” in the language of the Selk’nam indigenous people who inhabited the island in the pre-colonial era, is overseen by Chilean evolutionary biologist Barbara Saavedra. Formerly a university professor and private biodiversity conservation consultant, Saavedra has headed the Chilean office of the Wildlife Conservation Society since 2005. She spoke recently with EcoAméricas correspondent James Langman. [Log in to read more]

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