Former Logging Target, Chilean Wilderness a Conservation Gift

PUNTA ARENAS, Chile, September 15, 2004 (ENS) - The southernmost stands of old growth forests in the Western Hemisphere, slated for the chainsaw a few years ago, have been gifted to the Wildlife Conservation Society for preservation.

Goldman Sachs and the Goldman Sachs Charitable Fund announced Friday in Chile the transfer of the wilderness gift of more than 680,000 acres on the island of Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of South America. The gift covers an area the size of the U.S. state of Rhode Island.

In February 2002, Goldman Sachs, a global investment banking, securities and investment management firm, purchased as part of a larger pool of distressed assets the defaulted notes of the Trillium Corporation, a U.S. company based in Bellingham, Washington that owned the Chilean lands.

In 1993, the company's Chilean subsidiary, Forestal Trillium Ltd., bought 625,000 acres on Tierra del Fuego, across the Straits of Magellan from mainland Chile for a self-proclaimed sustainable forestry project that would have logged thousands of acres of virgin forest.

Lenga, Nothofagus pumilio, forest on Tierra del Fuego. This deciduous species is well adapted to the island's snowy mountains. (Photo courtesy Eco2site)

But logging plans for the lenga forests raised concerns among Chilean and international environmental groups, and while Chile conditionally approved Trillium's $200 million project, the company was not financially able to carry out its logging plans.

In August 2003, Goldman Sachs transferred the Trillium notes to the Goldman Sachs Charitable Fund, which took title to the land in Chile as part of an exchange that released Trillium from its debts under the notes in December 2003.

After an extensive search process, the Goldman Sachs Charitable Fund determined that the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is ideally suited to create a reserve and protect the key ecological features of this land for the people of Chile.

The Chilean lands transferred in the gift contain large stands of old growth lenga forests, as well as peat bogs, alpine meadows, river systems, and spectacular snow-capped mountains.

The landscape supports a wide range of wildlife, including the culpeo fox, firecrown hummingbirds, and Magellanic woodpeckers - a cousin of the extinct ivory-billed woodpecker of the southern United States.

The guanaco, a member of the camel family, is the region's signature animal, symbolic of the open ecosystems of southern South America.

A portion of the wilderness gift that will be conserved for future generations (Photo courtesy WCS)

"This announcement underscores the important role the private sector can, and must, play in the efforts to save wildlife and conserve wild lands," said Dr. Steven Sanderson, WCS president and CEO.

To manage conservation of these lands, Goldman Sachs, the Goldman Sachs Charitable Fund, and WCS are establishing a formal alliance that is intended to last for three years.

"Goldman Sachs, the Goldman Sachs Charitable Fund, WCS and the people of Chile will be pioneering a new kind of partnership for conservation of these precious wild lands, which reflect the importance of Chile for global conservation," Sanderson said.

"Goldman Sachs has set a new standard for the private sector's commitment to the natural world, and deserves tremendous credit for their imagination and resolve that these lands and their wildlife should be protected now and forever," he said.

Guanacos on the new conservation area in Tierra del Fuego (Photo courtesy WCS)

Whenever possible, said Sanderson, sustainable development activities, including ecotourism, will be undertaken to support conservation objectives and to provide benefit to local communities.

Since the early 1960s, the Wildlife Conservation Society has been committed to conserving wildlife and wild lands of southern South America. Since then WCS has helped create protected areas to safeguard populations of Magellanic penguins, South American sea lions, southern elephant seals and southern right whales.

During the 1980s and 1990s, WCS expanded its activities to include other marine sites, and recently helped to establish the Patagonia Coastal Zone Management Plan.

On land, the WCS is working on the Patagonian steppes to safeguard habitats of fox, puma, mara, and Andean cat.

Currently, the Wildlife Conservation Society works with Chilean organizations in Bernardo O'Higgins National Park, a protected area known for its fjords, glaciers and sub-Antarctic rainforests. The society supports blue whale conservation and sea bird research in southern Chile.