Multimillionaire buys South American land to preserve environment

Douglas Tompkins, the American multimillionaire who founded the Esprit clothing line, recently purchased more than half a million acres of Esteros del Ibera, a vast marshland in Argentina.
But his intent, he says, is not to exploit the land, but rather, to save it.

The Ibera Wetlands are located in the Corrientes province, on the northeast side of the South American country. They are comprised of a mix of swamps, lakes and lagoons, which makes them one of the most important water reservoirs in the continent. The area also hosts a large biodiversity, among them the pampas deer , the neotropical river otter and the black howler monkey or caraya (shown above).

Tompkins, a committed environmentalist, invests in purchasing areas of great ecological significance. According to an article from the Associated Press, he does so in order to protect these territories and the environment within them from the abuse of agribusiness and industrial development, with the idea that he will one day return them to the government as nature reserves.

With the acquisition of this land, Tompkins adds to the previously purchased territory in Chile, making him the owner of well over 1 million acres of land in South America, a combined area as large as the size of Belgium.