Perito Moreno National Park

| Argentina |

Area: 37,066 acres (15,000 hectares) for park expansion

Named for the founder of Argentina’s national parks, Perito Moreno National Park is a scenic landscape of lakes and mountains, beech forests, and expansive grasslands. Established in 1937, the park harbors the headwaters of the Santa Cruz River, which flows into the Atlantic Ocean, and showcases Cerro San Lorenzo, the second-highest mountain in all of Patagonia. Notable wildlife includes guanacos, Darwin’s rheas, huemul deer, culpeo foxes, and many aquatic birds.

Park History

Doug Tompkins first became intrigued by Perito Moreno National Park in 1968 as he passed by the area on a climbing expedition and saw the looming hulk of Cerro San Lorenzo. He visited the park in 1991 with friends Yvon Chouinard and Rick Ridgeway. The following year Tompkins negotiated the purchase of a roughly 37,000-acre private inholding within the park, which was managed as wildlife habitat and allowed to rewild. That tract was donated to the national parks administration in 2013.