Why Patagonia?

I have had to consider the question why work and fund conservation projects in South America and in particular Patagonia? I don’t think I knew exactly before we left last month. All I knew were from the pictures, the stories and our research that something big was there... We had to check it out... And it was there..

We do fund conservation work in the US at both major universities like Duke and Stanford, major environmental organizations like WCS and pro-fish organizations like Trout Unlimited. We are satisfied with these groups and their work. But there is a difference down in Patagonia and it is easy to see why. The US is the real leader in environmental stewardship on the planet. The state and federal agencies, fish and game departments, pro-fish NGOs, anti-fishing NGOs plus all the save the planet groups are fully engaged, the barganning tables crowded with every group wanting and getting in most cases a chair and a voice. And it does work in most cases... Well at least everybody gets a seat at the table. Once could speculate for US environmental policies there is another table that is by invitation only. Thats another post...

Patagonia - 800,000 square kilometers of land with 0.8 inhabitants per square kilometer. Three words come to mind - Vast... Untouched... Unmanaged... There is so much opportunity to help the few aware organizations, land owners, university professors and environmental groups protect their land. Consider this: There is not governmental agency with either the mission statement of staff to conduct or enforce environmental rules. Private fisheries research has been conducted on the Rio Grande since 1990, catch records are complete, privately-funded research conducted by well known US university groups and results are in the public domain and on the web for all to view. Yet the first major meeting between research team, land owner and the TDF agency responsible for environmental issues was suppose to take place just last week. Go figure that. makes me think of my favorite question... who cares?

There are both natural and man-made challenges in Patagonia. Population growth has spawned a major demand for more cheap electricity and this has sparked a major dam-building effort in Chile and Patagonia. Wild rivers like the Baker and Futaleufu are under seige by major European power companies teamed up with local governments to build theese dams and flood the river ecosystems. It is worse that the TVA or Corp of Engineers in the US. These are foreign private corporations with no accountability beyond their lobbyst’s bribe budget.

The continued effort for wealth extraction from the rivers, lakes and sea have spawned the $2B/yr Chilean salmon industry with numerous harmful impacts on the ecosystem. The real impact of that has been reported by WWF (see report) in great detail. But there is a more suttle impact creeping into the ecosystem. Escapees from the salmon pens have started to stage their own spawning runs up both pacific and Atlantic rivers. We heard from guides in Cholila, Chubut that salmon started showing up in the Corcovado River starting a few years ago. So what happens to the resident fishery going forward? What should be done if anything? What will be the effect of a major salmon spawning run in a few years? Who owns the salmon? Who can harvest them? They have already started farming rainbow trout on Lago Lemay right outside Bariloche - there are few regulations, no environmental impact assessment and a host of issues about them.

Meetings were held with several university professors at Universidad Nacional del Comahue in Bariloche, Rio Negro. Many of the faculty trained in the US and have active scientific programs, numerous graduate students and publish in international journals about their work in Patagonia. Unfortunately without a government agency or mission on fisheres conservation, there is no budget to fund any research. Research projects are based on what costs the least amount of funds rather than what is a pressing provincial issue.

We had lunch with Professor Pablo Vigliano in Bariloche to talk about the state of conservation in Patagonia. He gave us the summary from an soon to be published research publication that it is time for Patagonia to make some important decisions about how it manages its natural resources yet there is really no scientific data available on which to base any decisionmaking - no baselines, no informed provincial decision makers but rather a rapid period of economic development, subdivisions and resort properties in the area.

While MVF is concerned about conservation of river and ocean ecosystems on the planet not just in our back yard in Jackson Hole, the Chesapeake Bay or Bahamas. Following our venture capital roots to seek out projects with a significant return on investment of conservation progress, Patagonia is a prime place for us to work. We hope to have a plan in place in the next several months to prepare for the 2009 Argentina summer. That is January-April, 2009. More later as always.

Ibera Marsh Video

I compiled a short video from our travels through the Ibera Marsh.   It is the one true wild place we visited during our travels.  Just South of Brazil and bordered by Paraguay and Uraguay,  the marsh is a 3 million acre wetland with no dry land, no homes, no people just its wild and wild self.  So see what you think. 

paste this link into your browser...

http://tommvf.googlepages.com/Pira2.mov

What next?

I am back home in Jackson, WY working to document the expedition, places we visited, people we met and lay out an action plan for conservation projects in Patagonia.  The first step after unpacking and getting some sleep is inventorying the pictures and video.  We shot over 10,000 pictures and have over 12 hours of high definition video.  Gonna take some time to pull it all together and produce a summary video of the opportunity for conservation in Argentina.  I will try to update the blog with fresh pictures and video clips as soon as I can. 

At the same time we are moving forward on our two other major conservation projects.  The first one is the dolphin tagging program. We tagged over 300 fish in 2007 and are planning two expeditions in April and May to tag in the Bahamas.  Captain Steve and Captain Billy have been getting the Makara and Snafu ready to fish.  We are lining up tagging crews and will head out in a couple of weeks.

We also have a project working with the Henry's Fork Foundation starting in June in Idaho.  There is a major assessment of the fish habitat and ecosystem in the Caldera (see www.henrysfork.org for more information) and we are both helping fund the work as well as conducting our own research project there.  In the true fashion of a family foundation, MVF will enlist the support of its favorite sons McCain, Carson, Joe Jr and Ben to help in the research effort.  We will be onsite and broadcasting live from the banks of the Henry's Fork River in late June.  Stay tuned for more... Best to all. 

Back in USA....

Brandon and I flew back from Buenos Aires last night. I am still in DC awaiting a flight to Denver then home to snowy Jackson Hole. I was thinking last night about what did we really experience in Patagonia and the Marsh over the past three weeks. Big fish, wild winds, massive mountains... what I feel now is the passion of all those we met down there - from Noel at Pira, Pancho at Carrileufu, Barrett at Kau Tapen and Nick and his twin brother Alex at Irigoyen. There was never any hesitation, any second thought, any idea of something else. It was get up in the dark, put on your waders, get out on the river and encounter the day, whether it be blowing 35 mph or raining hard. We should all wake up and approach each day with the same enthusiasm. Do you do this? If not, then why?


I put up a slide show on google. See if you can view it and turn up the music until the speakers rattle....
http://tommvf.googlepages.com/Patagonia1m.mov

Heading Home

This is our last night in Tierra Del Fuego. We were still on the Rio Irigoyen today. Tomorrow we have a 5 hr ride to the airport, fly to BA then home to the US tomorrow night. We have been here 22 days, traveled all over the country, visited 5 different ecosystems, met some amazing people and learned much about conservation in Argentina. I know we will be back next year to work here.

My Mac crashed but we saved all the pictures. Internet is via slow sat dish here so I will post more pictures and video once I get back to the US. We are coming home with a heightened sense of the need for conservation education and change in how we manage our rivers and oceans. I will try to cover the important messages in the next week.

The Fall rains started today here. Hope we can get the truck back the 100 km over dirt roads to the highway. More tomorrow from BA. Best to all.

54 33.52 S 66 21.10W - End of the Road....

Rio Irigoyen, TDF

We left the Rio Grande this morning and traveled about 120 kilometers South to the Rio Irigoyen. We rode the bus down to the turnoff to Cabo San Pablo where Nico from the Irigoyen Lodge picked us up, then drove another 3 hours South along the TDF coast until the road ended. And I mean it just ended. TDF continues another 80 kilometers to its most Southeastern point but there are no roads, no access, no nothing. The end of South America.

Although we are staying right off the beach in a small house, there are no boats, no harbors, no marinas... just a few small streams that are the home of the world's largest sea run brown trout. There are still guanacos scattered around the fields and they seem to thrive here. Long ago the cattle and sheep ranchers killed off any large predators on the island of TDF so the guanacos are safe. We probably saw 100 of them on the drive here.

This is the fifth major ecosystem that we have encountered in Argentina. Unlike the vast rolling hills along the Rio Grande, here there is tundra that borders the ocean, vast kelp rafts along the beach and a tide that rises 26 feet twice a day. There are rolling hills, high bluffs that rise above the ocean, and thick forests bordering the tundra flats. We are here at the end of the summer. The first day of Fall is a week away. It is quiet, no wind, bright sun yet cool outside. We will hit the river and explore starting around 6pm tonight and stay out until about an hour after sunset. We travel in 6 wheeled amphibious vehicles. The tundra and bogs are almost impossible to travel by foot.

Nico and his twin brother Alex are our guides and built this place from scratch last year. The Rio Irigoyen is part of a massive estancia called Maria Luis and has been closed to all fishing for the last 6 years. Nico and his brother wanted to open up this place to just a few people for a few months a year to experience fishing for these sea run browns right at the mouth of the ocean. Our interest is in a conservation study to document a wild place like the Irigoyen and understand the human impact on such a place. More later. Best to all...

Windy Day

Wind blew hard today and we just fished thru it. They measured the highest gust around 44 mph. Only a few fish caught. We caught and tagged 13 lb sea run brown, but not a lot of other fish caught. There is a big issue here with overfishing, even where it is all catch and release. I will go into some detail about this in another post.

We did meet with the researchers from University of Montana today who are doing the ecosystem study here. This is year 3 of the study and they have tagged over 6,000 fish plus taken scale samples for age and environmental conditions.

Pretty tired = 11pm and we got back about 20 minutes ago. Dinner is soon and I am gonna crash. More soon. Best to all.

Tagging Sea Run Brown Trout

We have been staying at a lodge call Kau-Tapen on an estancia on the Rio Grande in Tierra Del Fuego for the past three days. There is a sea run brown trout study going on and we are participating, plus meeting with the scientist to talk about it and other projects here. One thing for sure: all the stories about the weather down here are true. The wind howls day and night. Must have been steady 25 mph today and we just fished thru it... you sort of forget about it and just keep casting. Had some good days. I tagged 4 fish yesterday on nine hours of fishing.

You have to remember that TDF, as it is called, is the southern most inhabited place in the world. It is the beginning of Fall here yet sunset is still 9:30pm. It is cold during the day: - 2, so fleeces, gloves, beanie and hood up to keep the wind off you. But sometimes the best bite is after dark so we fish til around 10:30pm. No headlamps - just stand in the river, fly cast in the dark, and if you hook a fish then the guide comes and turns on his headlamp.

The land here is flat, barren - almost no trees and windswept. The Estancia has tons of sheep and guanaco (shown above) that walk around and we see them every day. We fished yesterday with Max who is from Russia, lives outside of Moscow and works as a guide here in TDF and in Russia. Above is a picture of Max taking a scale sample for DNA analysis. Notice the red tag just below the dorsal fin. The internet here is dead slow so I get up before anyone else to do this report. Will try to upload more pics... time for breakfast. Best to all.

Escaped Salmon Find home in Los Alerces

We just spent 3 days in Los Alerces National Park, which was created in 1937 to protect the largest stand of alerces trees in the world. Some of the trees are over 3,000 years old and grow only 1 mm per year. The park is composed of a number of large and small lakes connected by natural rivers which all flow into the Pacific Ocean. We were guided by Pancho Panzer who operates the Carrileufu Valley Lodge just outside the park, and we traveled by raft and small boat through the Lago Rividavia and Menendez. The Menendez is closed to all visitors except by the permit that Pancho had arranged. Shown above, it is a spectacular lake surrounded by glacial capped peaks. There are no roads or trails through this section of the park that borders Chile.

The real surprise here is that farmed salmon from the Chile have escaped into the ocean and found their way up the rivers into the park. Just like their cousins in the Pacific Northwest, the salmon travel up the river to spawn and then die. The resident fish are mainly trout and native percas, which are a type of perch. Pancho talked about how they have learned to coexist with the salmon and comsume salmon eggs and dead salmon flesh. The total impact of the ecosystem is unknown since this spawning run has only been occurring for the last 4-5 years; it represents an interesting opportunity to study invasive species. I never imagined that a salmon would ever be called invasive...

There is a ton of controversy over non-native species in Argentina. Clearly the ecosystem will be impacted by a salmon spawning run up a river. What is the right path? Do you try to stop the spawn? What is the right response by the National park system here? More to this story after we go to Tierra Del Fuego tomorrow where a similar problem is occurring and a research team from University of Montana is doing some cutting edge field work. Best to all.

Southern Cross

When you see the Southern Cross
For the first time
You understand now
Why you came this way

Graham Nash


The Southern Cross is the southern hemisphere's navigational beacon. Centuries ago explorers like Magellan , Humboldt and Darwin used the Southern Cross to navigate the seas and mountains. The cluster of four stars above is the cross and the southern celestial pole is estimated from drawing a line through the top and bottom stars and extending it south for 4.5 lengths. Not the best navigation aid, but it was the best tool explorers had.

The entire planet has been inhabited by explorers since the dawn of time. While many expeditions like Columbus' or Lewis and Clark's were based on discovering new wealth, there are other great adventures that seek not wealth but awareness. For us in Patagonia, we are exploring what is, to us, a new world. I know it is not as Magellan found Argentina or Humboldt in Chile, but it is our time of discovery. I know our conservation work will be different going forward after this experience. I think I understand now why I came this way. Best to all.

Ted Turner, Doug Tompkins and the Argentina Military

We are in Cholila, a small town 3 hours South of Bariloche, 7 hours South of our last place in Alumine. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid lived here for a few years after leaving the US before their money ran low and they robbed that last bank. There is no shortage of history in Patagonia...

We meet with two university professors in Bariloche yesterday to learn more about conservation efforts here. There are several major NSF-funded projects underway here that are looking at climate change, habitat destruction and fishery populations. It is not a pretty story. The good news is people are starting to think about solutions.

The good news is the crowds are pretty much limited to one area in Patagonia. The lack of roads and airports has crowded people into one section leaving the other parts - like Alumine or here in Cholilia pretty much empty and protected. We will float the Rio Rividavia today. Unlike the hot, dry mountains of Alumine, this place is temperate rain forest, glacial-fed streams giving the water that deep blue color. The rivers here flow to the Pacific which is only 60 miles away. It is a different world.

Oh yeah... Ted Turner et al. What is most amazing about Patagonia and all of Argentina is how land is protected. Estancias are vast in this country. Major portions of Argentina were purchased over 100 years ago by European families and that land is still protected today from development. Ted Turner owns a massive estancia here and the land is totally closed to human access. If you own it in Argentina, it is yours. There are no rights given to others for access. Doug Tompkins is the most famous American here. He has purchased large tracks of land in Chile as well as Argentina. In fact he is a major landholder in the Ibera Marsh area. Americans - a.k.a. yankees -- are not trusted here. I guess because Argentines trust no one -- not the government, or corporations, or any outsider in their country.

Perhaps the greatest factor in the protection of Patagonia has been the role of the Argentine Military. The military decided to protect and secure their border with Chile so they set up a string of national parks along the Chilean/Argentine border. In addition, they set up a complex national park administration system that to this day is the dominant force in all environmental matters covering the area.

Much of Patagonia is protected but under assault in this area. There are other issues of real concern to discuss -- aquaculture, the removal of all non-native trout from rivers and lakes, habitat destruction from shoreline development -- not new issues, but important ones to discuss. But we remain most interested in the wild places of Argentina. Like the Ibera marsh, uninhabitable, dangerous and truly wild, there remain places to protect so they will always be there to remind us what it was once like everywhere... sometimes a sad thought, but definately a driving force for us here at MVF to help protect those places in every possible way we can. Best to all.

Northern Patagonia

Que tal? Hi from Northern Patagonia. We are in Alumine arriving last night after 2 and 4 hour rides on dirt roads in a Toyoto HiLux, and 2 plane rides of 2 hours each. Almost 1600 miles yesterday.... long day. We are learning more about Argentina through our talks... like the country has a 21% sales tax, and the president got caught sending cocaine to Spain in diplomatic pouches. But they have made bold moves and protected major portions of the country from development. Been a long day... had to drive into town after dinner - 11:30pm now to find an internet connection. But I can get most of my mail. No pics today, though...

The Ibera Marsh grew on us after the time there. Incredible place, biodiversity was amazing. Land of the Tiger of the River - the golden dorado - which was protected by the natives there. We are looking forward to exploring the rest of Patagonia in the next week before we head to Tierra Del Fuego. We have a series of meeting in Bariloche and Esquel with scientists to talk about potential MVF-sponsored projects here.

More tomorrow - and pics if I can find a fast connection. best to all.