Torres to reforest Chilean Patagonia

Familia Torres has announced plans to reforest a new 5,000 hectare property it has recently acquired in Chilean Patagonia to help offset its carbon footprint.

The estate, in the province of Aysén, is known as ‘Los Cóndores’ will be used to plant indigenous Chilean tree species in several large forests, which will serve the twin purpose of helping off-set the company’s carbon footprint and restore the local landscape to its more natural state.

Settlers in southern Chile in the 19^th century deforested huge swathes of the landscape in order to create land for livestock and plantations for timber mills using imported tree species such as pine.

Although the plan is to reforest as much of the property as possible, the estate is also home to meadow and lagoons that support various flora and fauna and these will be preserved too.

Torres acquired another 740ha Patagonian property in 2016, in the province of Coyhaique, for the same purpose and research is currently underway as to the most suitable trees to plant.

President Miguel Torres said: “Both in Chile and in Spain, we have a large forest area that allows us to preserve the landscape and look after the environment. Planting forests in certain areas will also help us to reduce our CO2 emissions even more and go one step further in our commitment to the environment.”

Torres has an environmental programme called ‘Torres & Earth’, which aims to reduce its carbon footprint and mitigate climate change.

Last year the company announced that its carbon footprint per bottle was 25.4% lower than it had been in 2008 and the aim is to increase that to 30% by 2020.