As part of the Santiago 2024 Reimagine Tourism event, Las Torres Patagonia, a tourism holding company located in Torres del Paine National Park, confirmed its signature of the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action and Tourism, a global commitment to address the effects of climate change.
With the signing of this agreement, Las Torres Patagonia, which is located in a natural and cultural reserve, commits to a number of responsibilities, such as halving emissions by 2030 and reaching net-zero as soon as possible, and before 2050. The agreement includes creating or updating existing climate action plans within 12 months of signing and implementing them, and aligning said plans with the five pillars of the Declaration (Measurement, Decarbonization, Regeneration, Collaboration, and Financing) to accelerate and coordinate climate action in tourism.
The CEO of Las Torres Patagonia Josian Yaksic commented that “our commitment as a company and as a family is firm. Today, we are signing to join the Glasgow Declaration and support the contribution to the global goal of mitigating climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030.”
Other pledges made in this declaration include the annual public reporting on progress against short-term and long-term goals and the actions being taken, the pledge to work in the spirit of collaboration, sharing best practices and solutions, and spreading information in order to encourage other organizations to become signatories and to support one another in reaching these goals as quickly as possible.
Conservation, Sustainability, and Safety manager John Ojeda signed the pledge, and then shared this milestone for international tourism with those present, commenting that “We are confident that we have made this commitment responsibly, and with the abilities and the plans laid out to comply with the 2030 and 2050 objectives for achieving carbon neutrality, which is aligned with our Management Plan that is based on the IUCN’s (The International Union for the Conservation of Nature) category V.”
The signing of this declaration was witnessed by Jeremy Sampson, co-author of the declaration presented at COP26 in Scotland, who was one of the distinguished guests of this new version of Santiago 2024 Reimagine Tourism.
After signing the official documents, Sampson declared that “It is wonderful that any organization joins such an important commitment to participate in global efforts to align tourism with the international community and with science,” highlighting that “It is important that this is done in Chile, because here we are at an early stage of this type of commitments, and it is important that leading organizations demonstrate that commitment to inspire others to participate.”
The signing of the Glasgow Declaration is in line with the strategy that Las Torres Patagonia has developed over the past decades, focusing on building partnerships between public and private entities for the preservation of the local flora and fauna in Torres del Paine, through various actions aimed at both conservation and raising awareness among the thousands of visitors to the national park each year.
Review the signed document here: Glasgow