Chiappe, age 52 is father of three children: Surya, Nahuel and Rocío, and grandfather of two boys, Dylan and Gabriel. He was born and raised in Buenos Aires.

At age 20 Chiappe embarked on several years of travel in a "school of nomadic life" with his wife Jillian, during one of Argentina's military regimes. They supported themselves through odd jobs until Chiappe began working as a journalist and photographer. They travelled extensively through Europe and India, and visited Nepalese valleys, Afghan deserts, Brazilian coasts and Peruvian hills before finally coming to rest in 1976 in Patagonia. Here "love at first sight with the Andean forests that frame the Valley of Epuyén represented a fundamental turn in our lives," Chiappe says.

Chiappe joined residents of the area in a lengthy, but ultimately successful, campaign to prevent the construction of a large dam that would have flooded most of the valley (and their own home) under 115 feet of water. In a country in which party membership is a requirement for political office, Chiappe became one of the founders of a local political party that won the municipal elections in Epuyén in 1987.

During the four years that the party held office, Epuyén became a vigorous opponent of nuclear waste disposal sites in its province and the first Argentine municipality to declare itself a nuclear free zone. During this period, the municipal government also prohibited the use of a number of dangerous pesticides (internationally known as the "Dirty Dozen"), designed a long- term urban and rural development plan, and created the first laws to protect the shores of local rivers, lakes, and creeks.

In 1980, building on these accomplishment, he and a handful of fellow inhabitants of Patagonia's southern valleys founded Project Lemu. Since then, Chiappe has served as the organization's full-time director.

In May 1993, Chiappe received honorable mention for environmental protection in the Rolex Awards for Enterprise, becoming the first South American environmentalist to be honored by that program since its inception in 1976. In October 1994, he was awarded one of Argentina's foremost ecological honors, the Faro del Fin de Mundo, for his work in the protection of native forests.

Chiappe is a member of the local Council for Environmental Protection and Tourism. For the last few years, he has been gathering oral history of the Epuyén Valley, and he soon plans to publish his third book of photos.

As a journalist, Chiappe has published numerous articles and two photographic books, Imágenes de un Sueño and Alma de Bosque (Ograma S.A., Buenos Aires 1997, ISBN 987-96741-0-3), from which the photos in this Web feature are taken. Chiappe says he finds photography is one of the best ways to oppose destruction through the creation and beauty.