Chile this month learned it is gaining two vast nature reserves, both of which will be privately owned and managed.

On Dec. 9, the government signed an agreement allowing the designation of Pumalin Park, created by former U.S. clothing entrepreneur Douglas Tompkins, as a nature sanctuary. The designation amounts to official recognition of Pumalin and confers legal protection equivalent to that of a national park.

Three days later, U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs announced it would donate for conservation a vast landholding on the Chilean portion of Tierra del Fuego that it had gained as part of a financial settlement with Trillium, a U.S. timber company. The land is likely to be proposed for nature-sanctuary status.

The developments cap a year of dramatic conservation gains in Chile. The government announced in January it would re-route a planned highway to spare coastal temperate rainforests in Chile’s lakes region, and it agreed to work with green groups to design a conservation plan for the forests. In August, Noranda of Canada suspended plans for a large aluminum plant on the central-Patagonian coast. And last month, Chile’s two biggest timber companies—prodded by Home Depot, the U.S. home-improvement company—agreed to stop logging in native forests and encouraging conversion of native forestland to tree plantations.

Pumalin Park, which Tompkins began assembling through land acquisitions in 1994, encompasses 742,000 acres (300,000 hectares) in the northern portion of Chilean Patagonia. The park features a vast, mountainous region that includes volcanoes, lush green temperate rainforests and numerous lakes and rivers. It also is home to Chile’s largest remaining stand of alerce trees (Fitzroya cupressoides), a giant-sequoia-like species that lives up to 4,000 years.

Earlier accord flopped

Chilean officials had signed an earlier nature-sanctuary accord with Tompkins in 1997, but they delayed implementation of the pact for over six years due to opposition from some Chilean politicians and from people living near the park. Some locals asserted land claims and raised concerns about Pumalin’s impact on future economic development. Political and military leaders, meanwhile, denounced Pumalin as a threat to Chile’s sovereignty, complaining the private reserve—which runs from the Pacific to the Argentine border—virtually bisects the country.

In this month’s agreement, Tompkins and the government ultimately found common ground. But to get nature-sanctuary status for Pumalin—a move he considered essential to ensure permanent protection of the property—Tompkins yielded to several government demands. He agreed to allow the government to choose three representatives of a seven-member board of directors of the Pumalin Foundation, the private entity that will manage the nature preserve. Also, board decisions will have to be supported by at least five members to pass. And Tompkins will grant property titles to 30 families that have land claims in the park. Finally, the government reserves the right to build roads deemed necessary to connect communities to the north and south of Pumalin.

Tompkins praised the administration of President Ricardo Lagos for finally closing the long-awaited deal. “It has been well-known that we wanted to declare Pumalin a nature sanctuary,” Tompkins, former owner of the Esprit clothing line, said in a prepared statement. “It was our objective from the start, and this government was ready to do it.”

Protection for lenga forests, too

Goldman Sachs, meanwhile, has turned a long-held dream of environmental groups into reality. The investment bank announced it would turn over to an as-yet unidentified U.S.-based environmental group some 680,000 acres (275,000 hectares) of lenga (Nothofagus pumilio) forest once owned and earmarked for logging by Washington-based Trillium.

Among the organizations Goldman Sachs is believed to be considering are The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International. The organization that is selected will design a management plan for the park and create a Chilean foundation to own and manage the land as a nature sanctuary.

The rugged Tierra del Fuego property includes mountains, lakes, rivers and some of the last large stands of lenga forest in the world.

Citing these resources, Chilean green groups fought Trillium’s plans in court. Eventually, financial problems played a role, too. Trillium owed tens of millions of dollars to a number of creditors, including $30 million to Goldman Sachs. Ultimately, it agreed to erase the debt by turning the Tierra del Fuego property over to the bank.

Goldman Sachs, led in the Trillium talks by Larry Linden, a senior executive at the bank and a member of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) board of directors, had considered options including selling the property. It finally decided to earmark the land for protection—in part to gain the benefits of a tax-deductible donation, but also, Goldman Sachs says, to further the cause of conservation.