Who was Douglas Tompkins
Douglas Tompkins (1943–2015) was an American businessman and conservationist. He climbed mountains and kayaked on several continents, building a business career without a university degree. [1]
The North Face, Esprit and expeditions
In 1966 he opened the San Francisco shop from which The North Face developed. It brought equipment together with a mountain-oriented community: climbers returning from Yosemite, musicians and people involved in the city’s cultural life. The brand’s earliest phase combined specialist retail with a meeting place for people who practised outdoor sports. [5]
Esprit began in 1968 through Doug and Susie Tompkins. The company’s account of its beginnings describes dresses made on a small scale and sold from a van. Doug helped develop the visual and commercial identity that accompanied its expansion from those modest beginnings into an international clothing brand. [6]
In 1968 he also travelled to Patagonia with Yvon Chouinard, Chris Jones, Dick Dorworth and Lito Tejada-Flores. They took surfboards, skis and climbing equipment, recording the journey on a 16-millimetre camera. Their Fitz Roy expedition became part of Mountain of Storms, preserving the journey’s mixture of friendship, travel and climbing. [7]
From business to conservation
His turn towards activism gained an institutional structure: he created New Paradigm Thinking in 1989, endowed the Foundation for Deep Ecology in 1990 and endowed Conservation Land Trust in 1992. These organisations could fund campaigns and acquire land, providing different means of contributing to ecosystem conservation and environmental debate. [3]
Arne Naess and deep ecology influenced his thinking, recognising value in nature beyond its usefulness to people. This perspective informed his criticism of economic growth and the industrial transformation of landscapes. [8]
Pumalín: from private property to national park
Pumalín began with the purchase of the 17,000-hectare Reñihué property in 1991. The area became a Nature Sanctuary in 2005. The subsequent land donation to the state helped create Pumalín Douglas Tompkins National Park, established by decree on 28 February 2018, after his death. [9]
Pumalín brings together temperate rainforest, alerce trees, fjords and volcanic landscapes. Doug, Kris and their teams developed trails, campsites and other facilities for public access. Work also extended to the gateway village of El Amarillo, through collaboration to improve its surroundings and connect the community with the park’s activities. [2]
Corcovado, Monte León and Iberá
Corcovado, established in 2005, illustrates the partnerships involved. Participants included Tompkins, philanthropist Peter Buckley, Conservation Land Trust and Chilean public bodies. Bringing private properties together with state land enabled a continuous landscape of coast, rivers, lakes and mountains around Corcovado volcano to be protected as a national park. [10]
In Argentina, Monte León was established in 2004 through collaboration between Vida Silvestre Argentina and organisations associated with Doug and Kris. A former Santa Cruz livestock ranch became a coastal national park. Its landscape combines steppe, guanacos and pumas with Magellanic penguin and sea lion colonies along the Atlantic. [11]
The initiative to donate land in the Iberá wetlands continued after his death. In December 2018 Argentina’s Congress approved the national park using land provided by Conservation Land Trust and Flora y Fauna Argentina. The new protected area in Corrientes complemented the existing provincial park and extended public protection of the wetland. [12]
Agriculture and landscape restoration
Conservation existed alongside agricultural production projects. At Laguna Blanca in Entre Ríos, his organisation documented a transition in 2012 across a roughly 3,000-hectare farm: from monoculture to an organic mixture of grains, vegetables, nuts, berries and herbs. The project sought to diversify production and restore soil degraded by earlier practices. [13]
Laguna Blanca’s design incorporated terraces, contour planting and cover crops to limit erosion. Wild areas were retained to provide habitat for pollinators and shelter from wind. These measures brought cultivated land and surrounding habitat into the same farm plan, rather than treating the agricultural fields as isolated units. [14]
Books and environmental campaigns
The Foundation for Deep Ecology supported large-format books combining photography, documentation and environmental arguments. Titles include Clearcut on industrial forestry, Fatal Harvest, published in 2002 on industrial agriculture, and Patagonia Chilena Sin Represas from 2007. Tompkins contributed to this publishing programme through the foundation, working with authors and specialist teams. [15]
The Patagonia sin Represas campaign brought together more than 80 organisations opposing HidroAysén. It combined technical comments on the environmental assessment with advertising, publications and public mobilisation. Rewilding Chile, successor to Tompkins’s local organisation, describes this collective effort and the government’s rejection of authorisation in June 2014 as a campaign milestone. [16]
Death, archives and continuing work
Tompkins died on 8 December 2015, aged 72, following a kayaking accident on Lake General Carrera in Chilean Patagonia. [8]
In 2024 Stanford University Libraries received the Tompkins Conservation archive. Personal and institutional records support research into land acquisition, philanthropy and conservation, alongside fieldwork in Chile and Argentina. [17]
Wild Life, directed by Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, follows Doug and Kris’s shared story and their transition from commercial brands to creating parks. [18]
Local organisations and teams sustain the work. Rewilding Chile, formerly Tompkins Conservation Chile, works on protected areas, restoration and wildlife recovery. Its executive director, Carolina Morgado, was involved in the land donation process. This structure supports projects beyond the founder’s lifetime and beyond the initial purchase of properties. [19]
