Doug and Chris Tompkins are a most unusual couple and long-term friends. They now own about two million acres in south America, primarily in Argentina and Chile. They are attempting to create or recreate areas where the original ecology would be conserved, and also to do it in a fashion that was sensitive to the needs of the local communities. They provide jobs for local people, they have attempted with considerable success in some places in getting local Argentines and Chileans involved in their programs. They’re taking worn out ranches and restoring them, making them very much like they must’ve been 150 years ago, 200 years ago. So what they are doing is worthwhile. When we look at such efforts and there are a number of others in various parts of the world, the niggling concern in the backs of our minds is one of, their viability. They’re attempting to preserve things in perpetuity.
