Nice to be able to smile about something for a change

In 2003, the New York Times reported last week, a failed logging operation was acquired by new owners. They

wondered whether they "should seek to maximize its economic value, which is what we would have done if this were a shopping mall or an apartment building," or do something else....

Ultimately they decided "to do what we thought was the right thing" - and the New York investment banking and management firm Goldman Sachs, of all people, set out to return more than 1,000 square miles of the Chilean portion of Tierra del Fuego to a more natural state and preserve it.

As is always the case in Patagonia, the project must take into account potential political pitfalls. In both Chile and Argentina, foreign-led efforts to preserve natural habitats are often viewed with suspicion, with some local people even convinced that such programs mean to wrest Patagonia from their control in order to establish an independent state. ...

To avoid such problems, the Wildlife Conservation Society, which has been involved in other projects in Patagonia since the 1960's, plans to administer the reserve here, as yet unnamed, in conjunction with an advisory council. Steven E. Sanderson, president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, said that while the exact composition of that group had not yet been determined, the majority of its members would be Chilean.

Tierra del Fuego is one of least hospitable but most coldly beautiful places on Earth. Now I just have to get there.