Facebook CEO Zuckerberg Buys 600 More Acres of Land in Hawaii Amid Protests

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have almost doubled their land holding on a Hawaiian island.

The couple purchased three more plots totalling 595.4 acres for a cool $53 million on March 19, Pacific Business News reported.

The tech billionaire’s property is located at Kauai, the fourth largest of Hawaii's eight main islands, and home to 67,000 people.

They already own a 700-acre chunk of land nearby; the Facebook CEO started buying land there in September 2014.

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It was purchased from the non-profit Waioli Corporation, which operates federal and state historic sites across the island.

“Waioli does essential work promoting conservation and cultural preservation and we are mindful of their legacy with regard to this land,” Chan and Zuckerberg said in a statement.

The couple promised to extend the existing agricultural dedication and honour the current ranching lease to Paradise Ranch.

“We have been working closely with a number of community partners to promote conservation, produce sustainable agriculture and protect native wildlife at our ranch and in the surrounding areas and look forward to extending that effort to Lepeuli in the months ahead,” they said.

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Sam Pratt, president of Waipoli Corporation, said that the organisation chose the Zuckerbergs after seeing their “dedication over the years to land conservation, protecting native species and working to preserve the natural beauty of Kauai.”

The couple, however, has been facing resistance to their gradual land accumulation in Hawaii; last year a petition was created calling for them to stop “colonising Kauai,” which currently has more than 1 million signatures.