The Weekly Anthropocene, December 14 2022
Dispatches from the Wild, Weird World of Humanity and its Biosphere
Argentina
On December 6, the far-south Argentinian province of Tierra del Fuego created the Peninsula Mitre Natural Protected Area, protecting approximately 10,000 square kilometers of land and sea around the Mitre Peninsula and the nearby Isla de los Estados.
The area is rich in biodiversity, home to immense kelp forests, soft corals, sea lions, Andean condors, guanacos, the endangered southern river otter, and 140,000 pairs of yellow-plumed penguins, the largest such colony in the world1. It’s also a key area for climate regulation: the Mitre Peninsula is the largest peat reserve in South America, holding 84% of Argentina’s peatlands and sequestering over 315 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, or about three years’ worth of Argentina’s emissions. The new protected area also is home to 30% of Argentina’s kelp forests, and these specific kelp f…
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