Sixteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

The call to “save the natural environment” is not new. During 1972, Sir Julian Huxley, et al’s “Blue Print for Survival” (Jan. The Ecologist) proposed development of a radically restructured society to prevent irreversible disruption of the life-support systems on this planet. This paper is by authors who responded by proposing a naturalistic experiment in a pristine environment to develop a model to do this. The project was to study an ecosystem and plan a human community to be in-tune with it. With continued ecological monitoring pernicious trends were to be arrested by changing the community design to become environmentally in-tune. During January-May 1973 an expedition to south Patagonia located 20,532 hectars of land in the Depto Baker, Aysen. With the approval and engagement of the governor of Depto Baker the Ministry of the Interior designated this preserved area for this ecological experiment. Based in the office of the Vice-Chancellor for Communication of the Catholic University and in partnership with the ecology departments of the University of Chile and University of Valpariaso, four other Chilean Universities partnered as did several universities in the USA and UK. It was to be funded by UNESCO’s program on Man and the Biosphere. This project came to an abrupt halt following the political turmoil of September 1973. This paper reports for the first time in Chile on the project’s purpose, design, location, timeline, and partners. This prescient project may have provided solutions to problems of climate change. It still could.