Development & Aid, Environment, Tierramerica

“Politicians and Executives Have Obsolete Ideas of How Nature Works”

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 22 2008 (IPS) - If they could, our politicians and business executives would try to squeeze the last drop of fertility out of our soils to make the last dollar or peso by over-exploiting nature, says the straight-talking U.S. conservationist and investor Douglas Tompkins.

Douglas Tompkins sold his textile business more than 20 years ago in order to channel his wealth to conservation projects. The places he chose are in Argentina and Chile, where this U.S. investor and philanthropist is viewed with great distrust.

In 2002, his foundation, The Conservation Land Trust, donated to Argentina's National Parks Administration 67,000 hectares that he himself had purchased in the southern province of Santa Cruz. Monte León National Park was created.

At the time he already had 300,000 hectares of land in Chile that he handed over to the Pumalín Foundation to protect it.

Now Tompkins is living on a ranch on the Esteros del Iberá, a wetlands preserve in the northeastern Argentine province of Corrientes. The 200,000-hectare property also will be given to the government for conservation, but before that, Tompkins wants assurances that the institutions entrusted to protect it will resist the appetites of the lumber and rice companies that are occupying land — without permits — in this ecosystem, with dams and embankments to contain the waters.

In an e-mail interview with Tierramérica, Tompkins defended his conservationist ideals and harshly challenged the big infrastructure projects in virgin areas. “If we continue down this path, the next thing is environmental collapse,” he warned. Following are excerpts from the dialogue:

TIERRAMÉRICA: — How has the management been of the Monte León National Park, on Argentina's Atlantic coast? Was the donation a positive thing? Or do you have regrets?

DOUGLAS TOMPKINS: — We have not had a chance to get down to Monte León in the last few years to see just how it is going so we have relied on the reports that we have received from Juan Kuriger, who is living there at the hostería (inn) with his wife Silvia Bruan. They both operate the hostería there and have daily contact with the park. Juan has been favorably impressed and if that is the case I must say we feel quite happy since he is a tough judge and had been initially quite suspect of what would happen once the gift was made to the APN (National Parks Administration).

We are firm believers in national park systems all over the world and believe that countries should take their national parks seriously and give them proper funding. In many ways they are the best face forward to the world and example of how a country manages itself. You can pretty much see how a country manages its entire economy by looking at the national parks. I say this with experience since we manage in Chile what is equivalent to a national park in Pumalín, we also managed what is now the Corcovado National Park for 13 years, and are managing what is equivalent to a national park here in Iberá.

— Does your organization maintain control over Pumalín to ensure its preservation?

— We have donated from a California foundation most of Pumalín to a foundation in Chile which is still under our control, so there is very little change. Eventually, we will donate the park to the Chilean National Parks system when we are ready. I hope within the next 10-15 years.

Presently it serves as a good model of what private, non-profit foundations can do in conservation. People come from all over the world to see it, including national park managers from other countries. We receive about 10,000 tourist per year and it had been a good tourism attraction for the local economy.

Unfortunately, the Chaitén volcano, which is within Pumalín, erupted this year, causing grave damages to the town of Chaitén and requiring us to close the park for this season to undertake major repairs in some ot the southern sections of the park.

— You are against the building of a road that would cross Pumalín. Do you worry that your position could be seen as interference by a private entity led by a foreigner in a decision of a sovereign state?

— Your question is badly asked. You need to research the Chilean laws for eminent domain and then you will understand. All the laws are such in Chile, as they are in Argentina, that if the government deems it necessary to build roads, ports, airports, etc. they have all the facilities to do so, there are no sovereignty issues here. That is the bulls–t of the ultra nationalists, politicians and anti-environmentalists.

We are not against the idea of connectivity, quite to the contrary — we have been lobbying for this for years, we just think it should be put along the coast (still running through some of Pumalín) as it is faster, cheaper, shorter, safer, sufficient, with next to no environmental impact.

If later it is deemed necessary then they should run the road in the interior although it will be 100 kilometers longer, have many ups and downs, cost 50 times as much, and have tremendous environmental impacts, use billions of extra fuel and energy, waste time for its citizens and so forth through the extra hours it takes to drive the round trip of 200 kilometers by the interior mountain road. Plus it will take 15 years to build and the coastal road will take less than two to complete, and needs zero dynamite.

Besides, there are 3,000 people living on the coast now with no road and only 75 Pumalinos in the interior who are not clamoring for a road at all, and can live with the coastal road for their occasional needs to visit the towns north and south. Socially, there is no question of which should have priority, but stubborn politicians with obsolete geo-political notions are fighting for the interior road.

— Do you oppose the construction of the Aysén hydroelectric complex in southern Chile? How do you think Chile should deal with the energy shortage?

— Who has proven that Chile lacks energy? Perhaps it is an overdemand. I say this because it is taken as a fact of life and unquestioned. This happened in California in the 1970s and it was discovered that you could uncouple economic growth and energy demand-growth and they did it.

Chile needs to do the same as California and work first on conservation and efficiency, then on alternative energy sources that are coming on line fast and not these giant mega-dams, which are now obsolete.

A great deal of Chile’s energy is simply flying out the window, quite literally. Probably 75 percent of Chile’s energy to heat houses is filtering through the roof, walls and windows and poorly sealed doors. It is amazing. Argentina is no better. That is the long and the short of it. It is unnecessary to meet Chile’s energy needs by destroying great sections of the country and lowering scenic and land values, uglifying the landscapes with 2,300 kilometers of high tension wires through some of the most pristine countryside. Chile needs a careful development plan to maintain the scenic values for a great future tourist business and for the quality of life of its inhabitants.

— Do you worry that your conservationist positions in countries like Argentina and Chile could run counter to their development needs?

— Your question is loaded with preconceptions and biases. You imply if we follow the logic of this particular question that conservation somehow must take a back seat to development. Whereas the reality of eco-systems is that nature functions on her own terms, and not how humans may wish that it was. So far the dominant worldview of development that has been embraced by virtually all governments in the world has brought us poverty, environmental catastrophes, climate change and the extinction crisis. The next question to you is, are you for continuing along the same development path that has brought us climate change? What comes next?… I can tell you… environmental collapse.

— What do you think of the companies that build embankments in the wetlands of Esteros del Iberá?

— The most interesting case of private companies or individuals that has met the courts so far is that of Forestal Andina, owned principally by a Sr. Maquiavelo, who has for the last nearly three years defied the local laws to build long destructive terraplens (embankments) in the Esteros del Iberá. The mismanagement and stupidity of this company is impressive. They have made an ugly and ecologically destructive mess of their holdings there.

However, for the first time in history, citizens have risen up against this Far West do-what-you-like attitude and taken Sr. Maquiavelo to court and have won every single legal case on the way, 1-2-3-4 in a row! The judge gave him 72 hours to begin dismantling the terraplen and restoring the damage or go to jail. It has been a positive sign that the justice system can work in Argentina despite the millions of complaints we hear from citizens of every rank and stripe.

— What would you say to those who believe it is necessary to occupy lands, even inside a preserve, in order to produce more food?

— Again, implicit in your question is the bias that somehow all the territory in the world must be subject to production. If we were to follow that logic we would in fact not feed the world but starve it by destroying the base of biodiversity which sustains all natural systems. There must be an extremely careful development of productive activities such that they are compatible with the way ecosystems function and are capable of maintaining healthy and vigorous biodiversity.

This is abundantly clear to science, although not clear to our political and business leadership, which if they had their way would try to squeeze the last drop of fertility out of our soils to make the last dollar or peso by over-exploiting nature. In short, there would be no development of any kind on a dead planet.