A Large Land Donation From American Philanthropists Inspires Chile To Designate 11 Million Acres Of Land As New National Parks

The Chilean government is inspired after American philanthropists donated 1 million acres of land to the people of Chile. With this, the government further allocates more 10 million acres of land as new national parks.

The 1 million acres of land were donated by Kristine McDivitt Tompkins, the former CEO of the clothing company Patagonia, and her husband, Doug Tompkins, co-founder of the North Face and Esprit clothing lines. The donation is considered the largest contribution by private persons to a country. The couple's goal is to enhance and preserve the land as well as returning it to the Chileans. On the other hand, Doug Tompkins died in 2015 and was not able to see his objective to materialize, according to Blooloop.

President of #Chile signs an agreement to create five new national parks. https://t.co/DPE1PK6m0P pic.twitter.com/lOOz5Zt4XG

— Mark Gately (@GatelyMark) March 19, 2017

Kristine Tompkins wishes that her husband Doug was present on the day their land was made into a national park. She said that if her husband Doug were here today, he might speak of national parks as one of the greatest expressions of democracy that preserves the masterpieces of a nation for all its citizenry.

At first, the Chilean government suspected the couple as CIA spies. It also indicted them as trying to build a Jewish state or nuclear landfill. On the other hand, this was cleared and settled last week. Then, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet further enlarges the national parkland in the country by 10 million acres, according to IFL Science.

The Chilean government will establish five new national parks and will be called "Route of Parks." Its land area is about 4,450,000 hectares (11 million acres) of protected land. It is estimated that the new parks will make about $270 million and open job opportunities for about 43,000 people.