Aerials glacier, mountains
| Music | 01:00:00:00 |
| Byrne: In the far south of Chile there is a wild land studded with volcanoes - glaciers - ancient trees.....a second Eden.. And it all belongs to one man The eccentric Douglas Tompkins who gave up a vast corporate empire in the States to become a recluse in an antipodean wilderness. The lord of all he surveyed.
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Map
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Byrne in plane | Byrne: A recluse by definition doesn't want to be found. And it seemed the weather was conspiring with him.
As we cruised past the close and shrouded cliffs - again - it became clear the pilot was lost
But at Chaiten - the nearest town to Pumalin Park help was at hand.
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01.02
01.10
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Approach to landing
Nicholas on guitar
Gets into rusty truck |
You can't drive here from Santiago. Pumalin Park cuts the country in two. I discovered later that most locals prefer to arrive in a boat.
Here in Chaiten we meet our first runaway eccentric. Nicholas the music teacher... another American who has rejected the McDonalds way of life. He doesn't have as much money as Tompkins but Nicholas has the best truck in town.
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01:24
01:39
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Truck on dirt road | Our translator, fixer and friend Patricio was also a musician.
And the inevitable happened.
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Nicolas and Patricio playing guitars | Singing | 02:09 |
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Car onto ferry
Landscapes |
Byrne: The road ends abruptly at Caleta Gonzalo It's here that Tompkins property cuts the country in half. To go further you must go by ferry
To the North are unpassable cliffs To the west the sea. To the East Pumalin Park.
Somewhere out there on a remote ranch without phone or fax is the elusive Douglas Tompkins.
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02:30
02:41
02:48 |
Plane coming down through mountains
| You don't just go knocking on Tompkins door. If he wants to see you he descends like cargo from the sky. And if you're lucky you get thirty minutes of his time.
We were lucky. | 02:58 |
Interview Tompkins
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Byrne: Do you think you're eccentric?
Tompkins: I heard that said - that's very difficult for anybody to answer about themselves.
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03:11
03:13 |
| Byrne: Do you see an irony between the way you made your money and the way you're choosing to spend it?
Tompkins: Well there are a lot of ironies in life, life is one big irony - right, everybody knows that ...
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03:29 |
Landscape | Byrne: But when it comes to his new life's work, Tompkins is deadly serious.
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Tompkins interview | Tompkins: The system is destroying nature and is extincting species. This is something that is not acceptable ...this is a moral line in the sand, so to speak, for me.
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Byrne and Tompkins in boat | Byrne: And so it was that Douglas Tompkins, corporate star, sold out of Esprit and - with a lazy $125 million or so in his pocket - bought into Chilean real estate.
| 03:58 |
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| Byrne: He now owns three hundred thousand acres, the world's biggest private park and all that lives on, above, and in it. | 04:20 |
Paula and Byrne on boat looking at sea lions | Paula: There's a big family who lives on the white rock over there. | 04:29 |
| Byrne: Tompkins had wanted to be alone - with us is Paula - one of his assistants. On this silver morning the Renihue fjord feels and sounds like paradise.
| 04:33 |
Sea lions | Music
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| Byrne: Who wouldn't feel grateful to a man who stopped the clock and let such beauty be -- wild and undeveloped?
Well quite a lot of Chileans as it turns out. What they see isn't philanthropy but a rich American acting suspiciously.
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Tompkins | Tompkins: Everywhere in the world -- human nature is something new, something unknown- is met with scepticism. So I take it as pretty normal.
Byrne: Scepticism plus.
Tomkins: Well you know sometimes it gets virulent.
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05:27
05:28 |
Byrne | Byrne: Well let's look at some of the reasons that have been given. You are building a Jewish homeland, you are setting up a gold mine, you are a spy for Argentina.
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| Tompkins: Yeah, you know, well it's hard to predict. Or to preempt these things, because you have to wait to find out what outrageous claim has been made
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| Byrne: What's the craziest one you've heard?
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Tompkins | Tompkins: The craziest one was that we were going to take the local cows out and replace them with North American bison - that was about as good as it got.
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Orpis with map | Orpis: The project of Tompkins cuts the country in about 100 kilometres from the mountains to the sea.
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| Byrne: Some of the objections are more substantial. Conservative Congressman Jaime Orpis for instance sees Tompkins's holding as a threat to national sovereignty.
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Interview Jaime Orpis | Byrne: So you think there is a military threat from the fact he goes right to the border with Argentina?
Orpis: Yes and this is very difficult and dangerous for our sovereignty. | 06:24
06:30 |
Tompkins |
Tompkins: As far as I can see the title holder, no matter where you are, in what country anywhere in the world, means very little in the case of a country needing to defend itself. I've never heard of military knocking on owners' door and asking if they could come in to defend the country.
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Wood chip pile and bulldozer
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More opposition - the timber industry - accustomed to reducing vast tracts of forest to small chips for export. Tompkins is portrayed as anti progress and anti development ...charges to which he pleads guilty.
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| Tompkins: I do understand why there's a rush to cut them because people want to get rich, but I think it would be better to understand what it is that you are cutting.
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Tompkins interview | Tompkins: The trouble is human progress has stopped evolution and in some places we need to let evolution keep going, because later when civilization collapses it would be good to have an evolutionary base in which to build back.
Byrne: Do you believe that will happen?
| 07:28 |
| Tompkins: It looks like it it's well under way from all I can see.
Byrne: What's the evidence? What do you look at to say that?
Tompkins: I would say the eco social crisis is the first place you could look. I mean we have greenhouse effects, ozone depletion we have forest cover, we got diminishing bio mass in the oceans, we have depleted soils, we have toxics everywhere. We have massive cities out of control ... I mean, it looks like collapse to me.
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07:48
07:49
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In boat on lake | Music
| 08:16 |
| Byrne: A solid hour's boat trip from Caleta Gonzalo - at the foot of the active Michimahuida volcano - is Douglas Tompkins ranch.
Once again we went with Paula - the eco-warrior himself was off in his plane scouting more land.
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House | While the house is relatively modest - for a multi-millionaire - | 08:54 |
Garden sequence | the gardens are something else. |
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| Tompkins global passion for nature is echoed in his own backyard.
It's all organically grown, of course, and tasting of warm sunshine.
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09:14 |
| Byrne: What about the yellow flowers? Are they useful, or just pretty?
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| Paula: They're to attract birds and butterflies and bees. Especially bees, now that we're producing honey. So that's good for us.
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| Byrne: And horseflies?
Pity about the horseflies, but even Eden had its snake. | 09:34 |
| Paula: They come here for the summer.
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Greenhouse | Music
Byrne: But even his dedication to the natural world has been used against Tompkins. The stick they use to beat him is deep ecology - though what that actually means, is open to considerable dispute. |
09:50 |
| Tompkins interview Byrne: What is deep ecology?
Tompkins: Instead of human beings being anthropocentric, being the centre of everything, human beings are but one node in a nexus in a vast net or complex of all other beings. And that other beings, whether they are plants or mountains or rivers or so forth have value - intrinsic value in and for itself. |
10:27 10:29 |
Jaime Orpis
Super:
JAIME ORPIS Congressman
| Orpis: Tompkins is not alone - not a USA person that wants to make a great park in Chile. He's part of the more radical movement, ecological movement in the world, the name of this movement is the deep ecology
Byrne: How do you understand Deep ecology?
Orpis: Deep ecology doesn't want any progress.
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10:20 10:23 |
Byrne in boat | Byrne: Tompkins created and funds the Foundation for Deep Ecology in the United States. And it does call for a limit to human population growth. But in this deeply Catholic country, that's laid Tompkins open to the charge of being an abortionist - and an enemy of the Church. And the church had the means to puncture Tompkins dream. | 10:07 |
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Interview Tompkins | Byrne: That was the land you really wanted, wasn't it? I mean that was the missing link?
Tompkins: Yeah. That was the centrepiece - that would have united North and South pieces. But you know, we were sleeping. We woke up and said this is not possible we can get blamed for this.
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Music
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Tompkins into airplane
| Byrne: Douglas Tompkins came to Chile with deep pockets, high hopes and a grand dream. Eight years on - despite the knocks - he's still dreaming.
| 11:50 |
| He gives millions each year to various environment groups. And he's planning to turn this land into a national park, which he'll bequeath to the Chilean people.
| 12:03 |
Plane | And what will Douglas Tompkins do next? He'll go to another country, and start all over again.
| 12:17 |
Tompkins interview | Byrne: I don't know if it's possible to answer this but I'll ask anyway, why do you give all your money away?
Tompkins: Well what would you do with it, fiddle while Rome burns?
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Plane flying over forest/sea lions | Music | 12:37 Ends:01:13:00:00 |
CREDITS:
Reporter JENNIFER BYRNE
Camera GEOFFREY LYE
Sound SCOTT TAYLOR
Editor GARTH THOMAS
Research PATRICIO LANFRANCO
Producer ANDREW CLARK