How the former CEO of Patagonia clothing is saving one of the world's most beautiful regions

This week the Chilean government unveiled five new national parks in Patagonia and the expansion of three others, creating a 17-park route stretching down the southern half of Chile to Cape Horn.

The victory for conservation is largely thanks to the work of US clothing entrepreneurs Kristine McDivitt Tompkins and her late husband Doug Tompkins, who moved to Patagonia over two decades ago to dedicate their lives to preserving and rewilding large tracts of the vast, mountainous region.

Doug Tompkins was the founder of the outdoor clothing behemoths North Face and Esprit, while Kristine is the former chief executive of clothing brand Patagonia.

This week their NGO Tompkins Conservation formally donated one million acres of land to the Chilean government, an agreement that was announced in March 2017. This is said to be the largest land transfer in history from a private entity to a government.

In total, over 10 million acres of land were added to Chile’s national parklands this week, an increase of 38.5 per cent, representing a chunk of wilderness around the size of Switzerland.

The work of Doug and Kristine has been primarily to protect threatened ecosystems that they have acquired from willing sellers over the years, but also to work with the residents and neighbours of the land to create jobs and encourage ecotourism. Their aim was always to donate land back to the Chilean government as part of the national park system.

Following the sudden death of her husband in 2015, Kristine McDivitt Tompkins has continued with their conservation work alongside the team they have built over the past two decades.

On the Tompkins Conservation website, Kristine wrote: “I am proud of my husband Doug and his vision which continues to guide us, in addition to our entire team, for completing these two national parks and the broader network, a major milestone of our first 25 years of work.”

She added: “While we will continue to help promote and safeguard these parks, we are beginning to turn our attention to more new conservation and rewilding projects in Chile and Argentina as we work to save and restore big, wild and connected ecosystems.”

Tompkins Conservation also has projects outside of Chile. In the Iberá marshlands of Corrientes Province, Argentina, she is working to rewild the landscape by introducing absent native species including tapirs, giant anteaters, macaws and jaguars.