In response to the current global extinction crisis and to preserve life on this planet, in 2017, Fundación Rewilding Argentina created the Marine Conservation Program.
Between 2017 and 2022, under the No Blue No Green (Sin Azul No Hay Verde) movement, we fostered the creation of the first National Marine Parks in Argentina, prevented the salmon industry from operating in the Beagle Channel in Tierra del Fuego, and helped create Península Mitre Natural Protected Area, which protects a critical place for carbon capture in Argentina and for fighting the global climate crisis.
Since 2022, we have centered our marine conservation efforts on the Patagonia Azul Project on the coast of Chubut. The project aims at strengthening the protection of marine ecosystems, working for their ecological restoration, and boosting the development of a local, restorative economy through various programs we carry out along with municipalities and communities.
Patagonia Azul Project
The future Patagonia Azul Park lies on the coast of the province of Chubut, within the Patagonia Azul Biosphere Reserve. The area harbors over sixty key islands and sheltered bays where various marine birds and mammals feed, breed, and nest. Patagonia Azul represents a unique opportunity for conserving and recuperating natural ecosystems through rewilding while fostering a new, restorative local economy that allows people and wildlife to thrive.
Península Mitre
Futura Área Natural Protegida.
Uno de los últimos lugares prístinos del planeta
Ecosystems
Peat bogs, meadows and marshes, Patagonian mountain forest and kelp forests.
Carbon Sequestered
318.6 million metric tons
Conservation Value
Species that are vulnerable to or at risk of extinction, like the southern river otter, the humpback whale and the Common Steamer duck.
Península Mitre Natural Protected Area is located in the farthest east part of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, at the southern tip of Argentina. The protected area covers approximately 300,000 hectares of land and 200,000 hectares of sea, including the waters that surround Isla de los Estados. It protects 84,4% of Argentina’s peatlands, which make it the most significant area of carbon sequestration in the country—a key tool to fight the climate crisis.
Furthermore, the coasts of Península Mitre concentrate 30% of macroalgae forests of the Argentine Sea. These “submarine forests” are considered one of the most productive ecosystems in the world due to its amazing capacity to sequester carbon.
This region has managed to stay almost completely intact, in its original wild and indomitable state. Its off-shore waters are a union of two oceans, the Pacific and the Atlantic, a productive commingling in which inhabit, migrate and feed numerous species that are vulnerable, threatened and endangered of extinction, like the humpback whale and the flightless steamer duck in the sea and the southern river otter on the land.
In addition, there are vestiges of the Haush indigenous culture, evidence of more than 500 shipwrecks and an infinite number of species of marine and terrestrial flora and fauna.
Peninsula Mitre
A project with thirty years of history
The first exploratory expedition that was done on Península Mitre took place more than thirty years ago, and during this survey the need to conserve the area was identified. The different bills that have been presented to protect the region have been transformed over time; however, all shared the same spirit of conservation and the final goal to designate the peninsula as a Natural Protected Area.
Up until the present, the natural attributes and the archeological remains found there have largely been preserved. But this area faces new challenges such as theft of archaeological treasures, the pressure from exotic species, and, more than anything, the consequences of an extractive economic mode that puts at risk the very elements that make this place a unique natural area and an exceptional treasure for humanity.
Yaganes and Namuncurá-Banco Burdwood ll Marine National Parks
Yaganes and Namuncurá-Banco Burdwood ll Marine National Parks
Ecosystem
Ocean of the Continental Shelf.
Combined Area
90,000 square kilometers.
Important Conservation Attributes
Large marine, almost pristine areas, which are key feeding sites for a vast amount of marine mammals and birds, among them the fin whale, the sei whale, and the cachalot.
Yaganes and Namancura-Banco Burdwood II National Parks
Yaganes and Namuncurá-Banco Burdwood II were the first marine national parks created within the Argentine Marine Protected Areas System in December 2013.
The Namuncurá-Banco Burdwood II National Marine Park includes sea beds 4000 meters deep and submarine canyons that contain abundant biodiversity. This region is part of a crucial migratory route for numerous mammals and birds, who find there an important source of food on their long journeys.
