Lucas Chiappe moved to the beautiful Epuyén Valley in the northern Patagonian Andes in 1976. In 1994, he conceived the idea of a network of biological corridors to protect the largest stretch of surviving Gondwannic forests in Argentina without displacing existing settlers. It would occupy a narrow region, running 250 miles from north to south, that includes the Epuyén area.
Chiappe organized support for this zone, now officially known as the North Andean Patagonian Regional Eco-Corridor Project, through Project Lemu, which he founded in 1990 to promote protection of the remaining native forests in the Epuyén valley. The corridor would span all the existing parks and protected areas from the northern border of Lanín National Park in Neuquén Province to the southern border of Los Alerces National Park in Chubut Province. (These include Nahuel Huapi National Park in Neuquén Province; the new Río Azul protected area near El Bolsón in Río Negro Province; and Chubut Province's Lago Puelo National Park and two new provincial parks, Cerro Pirque and Río Turbio.) The proposed corridor is making its way through the government approvals process, and must jump a few more hurdles before it is approved by the legislatures of the region's three provinces.

Chiappe envisions the Argentine corridor as the nucleus of the more ambitious Gondwana Forest Sanctuary, which would encompass all the world's native forests below the 40th parallel. This larger vision began as a collaboration between Chiappe's Project Lemu and colleagues in the Defenders of the Chilean Forest organization on the western side of the Andes. They are working together to include Chile's Pumalin Park (the world's largest private park) plus Chile's Vicente Perez Rosales and Puyehue National Parks in the North Andean-Patagonian Regional Eco-Corridor.

Beyond this, Argentine, Chilean and American activists are working to create a Trans-Andean Wildlands Complex that straddles the Andes in both Argentina and Chile. It would be one of the world's largest protected areas (19,300 square miles), extending more than 1,300 miles from the 37th parallel south to Tierra del Fuego. This area already boasts eight national and seven provincial parks in Argentina, and 20 national parks, 33 national reserves, and seven natural monuments in Chile. Protected areas would be linked by the Sendero Pehuenche, a proposed trans-Andean trail.