Onboard Peace Boat's 68th global voyage between Buenos Aires and Valparaiso, six youth with environmental organizations and artistic backgrounds from Uruguay, Argentina and Chile joined Peace Boat to carry out discussions and to increase awareness about environmental issues in South America. Peace Boat offered this leadership training programme to active youth in Latin America to give them the opportunity to exchange ideas and opinions face to face with people from other countries and form a network of environmental activists and artists in the region.

As representatives from the environmental movement in South America, activists from indigenous and environmental organizations including CODEFF, REDES, and PROTEGER came together and wrote a declaration to support the campaign to make Patagonia a World Heritage Site, recognized by UNESCO.

See below for the declaration.

PATAGONIAN ICE FIELDS AND ARCHIPELAGOS AS A WORLD HERITAGE SITE

We, young activists from Latin America gathered in the 68th Voyage of Peace Boat, and joining the petition of organizations and individuals that call upon the Chilean State to declare the area of Patagonian Ice Fields and Archipelagos a World Heritage Site, declare as follows:

We recognize and value the Western Patagonia as a territory of unique environmental and social qualities of high conservation priority. In the far south, we find a region of low human presence, which many of its areas are even unknown to the world. This zone hosts a variety of ecosystems, among which are two large ice fields, glaciers hanging from the mountains, rapid rivers, large and deep lakes, rain and snow, making this region one of the world's major reservoirs of pure, freshwater.

Unfortunately, the Western Patagonia is a territory currently under threat from unsustainable activities. Chilean and foreign business groups in partnership with government authorities in the face of a supposed energy crisis have put their eyes on the pure, fast-flowing waters of the rivers of this territory. This is how various hydroelectric projects, whose energy will be destined to the country's mining industry, are threatening to stop forever the majestic rivers of Patagonia, the main of them, the Baker River in Aysen.

The dams are not the only threat. 50,000 km of coastline constituted by fjords and channels of extraordinary beauty and rich biodiversity could be locked up in the medium term for the mass production of salmon. These companies of Norwegian and Chilean capital, which destroyed the aquatic environment of the seas of Chiloé and some islands in the northwestern Patagonia, now seek to advance towards the fjords and inland seas of the Patagonia.

We believe that these activities are incompatible with the need to preserve Patagonia for future generations. We do not believe that development is synonymous with destruction. For that reason, we urge that the ice fields and archipelagos of Patagonia not only receive the protection of the state law, but also have a global recognition of its value to humanity, due to the rapid degradation of the landscape, the retreat of the glaciers, the fragility of the existing species and the industrial threats already mentioned.

We demand that the Chilean State declares the Patagonian Ice Fields and Archipelagos a World Heritage Site. As young environmentalists, we bet on a new relationship between man and nature. Our life depends on nature. We are all part of it.