Event: Route of Parks European launch with Kris Tompkins and Pura
We are very excited to share the news that Kris Tompkins will be joining us for an evening in conversation with Pura Aventura in central London this September to officially launch Chile's Route of Parks project in Europe. The Q&A session will be hosted by BBC presenter Joe Crowley.
September also marks 20 years since Pura Aventura’s launch and the publication of our first brochure dedicated, almost in its entirety, to this very same region. What could be more natural, or exciting, than for us to celebrate in each other’s company?
What is the Route of Parks?
The world's biggest ever conservation project links together 17 national parks along 2,800km of land and sea in Chilean Patagonia, from Puerto Montt in the Lake District all the way down to mythical Cape Horn. It encompasses 11.5 million hectares and protects 60 communities and 24 different ecosystems.
Read more at the official Route of Parks website
Kris Tompkins
Those of you familiar with the story will know that, quite apart from nearly 20 years as CEO of Patagonia clothing, Kris has played a fundamental role in the creation of Patagonia’s Route of Parks.
Along with her late husband Doug Tompkins, founder of the North Face and Espirit clothing brands, they began laying the foundations of the project way back in the early-1990s. For the next 25 years, Doug and Kris brought up strategically important, environmentally vulnerable land in Patagonia to protect it and restore critical wildlife habitats. They'd then hand it all over to the government as newly-formed or expanded national parks. Despite fierce scepticism along the way, that's exactly what they did with the world's largest ever private land donation.
Doug sadly passed away in a kayaking accident in 2015. But the unrelenting determination and passion of Kris drove the project on and realised their shared vision.
How can you attend?
The official Route of Parks launch event is happening on the evening of Tuesday 24th September 2019 at the RIBA building in central London.
If you would like to join us, please send an email to [email protected] and we will add your name to our provisional invite list. However, please note that this event will probably be very heavily over-subscribed so will likely have to run some form of lottery for tickets.
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The Pothole is Pura Aventura's popular monthly email. We share what we love, what interests us and what we find challenging. And we don't Photoshop out the bits everyone else does. We like to think our considered opinions provide food for thought, and will sometimes put a smile on your face. They've even been known to make people cry. You can click here to subscribe and, naturally, unsubscribe at any time.
