Solidarity Planet

Foundation protects Chilean and Argentine Patagonia

Learn about a love story for nature and the dedication of lives to protecting and conserving South American Patagonia

By Claudine Blanco

Douglas Tompkins, passionate about nature and practicing sports such as climbing and canoeing, started his first company when still very young because he was unable to find suitable clothes and equipment for the sports that he was practicing. In this way, North Face came into being. After a few years, he sold his share in the business and took a sabbatical, traveling and exploring incredible places, mainly in South America, and among the most beautiful landscapes of Argentina and Chile.

A born entrepreneur, he returned to his country and decided once again to start his own business in the fashion industry, this time creating a brand, Esprit, with his wife and mother of his two daughters. The brand quickly achieved prominence and success and broke sales records. However, the businessman could not leave behind his great passion and, as the years passed and the more successful the brand became, the more time he spent involved with nature.

On these trips, his view of the world was increasingly transformed and, seeing the consequences that ecological disasters were causing, he decided to change the course of his life and dedicate himself to protecting nature. Consequently, in the early 1990s, he ended his business career and moved to Chile to create his own institution.

In 1993, he married Kris McDivitt, who left her career as an executive director of the brand Patagonia and they started the foundation by buying land throughout the Chilean territory in order to transform it into National Parks.

In the unmissable documentary about this trajectory (see above), Douglas explains that the National Parks belong to everyone and that this brings a sense of economic balance, reducing social differences and for this reason they need to be preserved, in addition, of course, to their fauna and flora. He also tells of the challenges encountered in the struggle with the Chilean government that distrusted philanthropic environmental purchases and the slanders that they suffered.

He was an admirer of the phrase by Edward Abbey who said, “sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.” Douglas Tompkins was undoubtedly a man who did plenty for the planet.

The foundation has already had an impact on more than 60 communities and has become the largest owner of private land between Chile and Argentina. Douglas died in a kayaking accident in 2015 and, in 2019, his wife fulfilled the promise he had made to the Chilean government and made the largest donation of private land, about 400,000 hectares for the Pumalin and Patagonia National Parks, as well as other donations that had already been made for the expansion of other existing national parks and the creation of further natural areas.

In the Patagonia National Park, where the brand-new Hotel Explora Parque Nacional Patagonia has been inaugurated, there is a fully interactive museum donated by the institution. In one of the unmissable videos on display, they show what humanity’s neglect has caused, they talk about the importance of educating children and of each one doing their part, no matter how small.

In several interviews, Kris says that she believes that we only take care of what we love; so, now in charge of the Tompkins Foundation, she continues her battle to carry on the legacy that she built together with her husband.

It is a beautiful love story, which was interrupted by an accident, but which remains alive due to the ideals and proposals of a life that brought them together and will continue on living through the institution.