Saving the world's oldest trees

Industrial tree plantations are not forests

To say that the native forests of Chile are like no other is an understatement. Many of Chile’s native tree species are unique to the southern cone of South America and can't be found anywhere else in the world. Trees like the alerce, whose lifespan typically exceeds 3,000 years, and the araucaria araucana, a type of monkey puzzle tree, which is the world's oldest surviving tree species. The animals that depend on Chile's native forests for survival are equally rare: 90% of them are unique to Chile. This includes the world's smallest deer, the púdu.

Unfortunately, the remarkable biological diversity of Chile’s forests has met with  destruction, mostly to make way for industrial tree farms. As a result, Chile now has some of the world’s most endangered native forests. Working with our allies in Chile including Defensores del Bosque Chileno, Instituto Ecologia Politica, Greenpeace Chile, Terram and Bosque Antiguo, we secured protection agreements for over one million acres (400,000 hectares) of Endangered Forest in Chile in 2003.
Read an account of our work in Chile >>

Coverage on the front page, progress on the front lines

In 2002, we received a lot of international attention for a a full-page ad that we placed in the NY Times. Shortly after, we leveraged our long-standing relationships with some of the biggest names in the wood and paper industries—companies like Home Depot and Andersen Windows—and convinced Chile’s two biggest wood companies to stop destroying Chile’s native forests. In August 2004, The Wall Street Journal featured a front page profile of our campaign.
Check out the coverage >>