for two american philanthropists, doug and kris tompkins, the route of parks was just one part of a decades—longagonia. over the course of 30 years, doug, kris and the tompkins conservation 0rganization bought two million acres of land across chile and argentina. i am very proud of what we do because every hectare we have ever purchased goes right back to the people of the country. if you want to conserve a territory and bring back species who've gone toward a point where their numbers are quite low, you have to: a — consult the geniuses of the place who are the people who've lived here for a very long time. because we're coming in and we don't really know that much about how these areas function and they do. the chilean gaucho traditionally is a horseman skilled at protecting cattle and sometimes hunting predators. but gaucho don daniel now has a wider view of predators, which are an important part of the wildlife ecosystem. he now monitors and protects native deer. today, he uses modern techniques to track the tagway mules nearby. so, the signal is quite strong when we point the antenna that w

doug tompkins sadly never saw his plan with kris finalised, as he passed away in 2015.york city wrote to me just a few days after he died, and she said, "look, "you have a choice here. "you can be the long—suffering widow or you can get out of bed and go do these things." and she was right. that was a conscious decision i was going to have to make. and so ijust thought, "ok, let's go for it." and that's when i started trying to tie up everything and within two years, we had them all donated. wow. and that was a lot of work. and i think it saved my life needing to do that. yeah. i think there's a tremendous amount of enthusiasm in chile right now, young and old. and certainly the environment is one of the big platforms of this new administration. ijust don't think i was expecting what an amazing place of contrast this country is. but at the same time, there's lots bringing it together at the moment, like a new focus on the environment and conservation and ambition to set a new course for the future — treasuring their common heritage and their common land for generations