TORRES DEL PAINE, Chile – Scientists from several countries announced Saturday the creation of a Climate Change and Biodiversity Research Network to counter the lack of awareness about the effects of climate change in the Strait of Magellan and the Antarctic Peninsula, and its consequences for the planet.

That was the purpose of the Declaration of Magellan, signed Saturday at Grey Glacier in the Torres del Paine National Park, at some 3,100 kilometers (1,926 miles) south of Santiago, by some 40 scientists from Chile, the United States, Germany, Britain, Australia, Brazil and New Zealand.

The goal of the agreement, reached after three days of deliberations in the southern city of Punta Arenas, is to spark concrete actions allowing the “Strait of Magellan and the Chilean Antarctic” region to identify and implement measures to mitigate the multiple effects of global warming.

The document, signed at the international meeting on “Climate Change in the Magellan and Antarctic Region: Facts and Challenges for the Future,” calls on all relevant national and international organizations to contribute substantial resources to implement long-term research.

“Climate change not only represents a threat to the ecosystems of the extreme southern part of South America, the Antarctic and the planet, but is also an opportunity to improve humanity’s relations with one of the last pristine areas in the world,” the scientists said.

Dr. Ricardo Jaña of the Chilean Antarctic Institute said that this meeting – preceding the climate-change summit to be held in Copenhagen in December under the auspices of the United Nations – is a message being sent from Chile to the world.

“We can make a significant change, not only the academic and scientific world, but also students, citizens and the authorities,” the president of the meeting’s organizing committee said.

For his part, the University of Maine scientist and internationally renowned researcher Paul Mayewski said that “much of what is happening in this region is part of the impact of this phenomenon on the world.”

Mary Kalin, researcher from the Ecology and Biodiversity Institute at the University of Chile, praised the fact that the scientists meeting at Punta Arenas this week had been able to agree on such a transcendental document.