North Face Co-Founder Bought 2.2m Acres Just to Protect It

Most billionaires leave their mark in concrete and steel towers bearing their names, resorts cut into mountaintops, skylines altered in their image. Doug Tompkins left his mark in wind and water. He spent his fortune not on building, but on keeping things exactly as they were buying 2.2 million acres of wilderness simply so no one else could touch them.

It’s an area larger than Delaware, stitched from old-growth forests older than Rome, grasslands still patrolled by pumas, and glaciers that have never known the hum of machinery. This was not an investment, nor a vanity project. It was, in Tompkins’ eyes, a debt payment a way to “pay the rent” for living on Earth.

But before Patagonia became his life’s mission, Tompkins was a man who had helped shape consumer culture itself, co-founding The North Face and Esprit. His path from outfitting adventurers to defending the last wild frontiers is a story of transformation, conflict, and the stubborn belief that some places should remain untamed forever. And it all began in a remote corner of the world where the land gets under your skin and refuses to let go.

The Land That Changed Him

Doug Tompkins first met Patagonia not as a tourist with a camera, but as a dirtbag climber on a long, improbable road trip. In 1968, he and Yvon Chouinard who would later found the outdoor clothing company Patagonia drove a battered Ford Econoline van thousands of miles down the Pan-American Highway. Surfboards rattled on the roof, climbing gear was piled in the back, and the two friends were chasing peaks, waves, and a sense of freedom. When they finally reached the jagged silhouette of Mount Fitz Roy, something shifted for Tompkins.

Patagonia is not a place you merely pass through. Its landscapes get under your skin: ancient Alerce trees, some more than a thousand years old, rising like green cathedrals; condors gliding above valleys vast enough to swallow sound; glacial lakes shimmering in shades of turquoise that seem otherworldly. It is a place where the weather can pivot from calm gold light to storm-lashed grey in minutes, and where the ecosystems still function much as they did before the industrial age.

Decades later, when Tompkins returned, the wild edges he remembered were fraying. Logging threatened old-growth forests. Industrial salmon farms were leaching oxygen from pristine fjords. Hydroelectric dam proposals mapped rivers that would flood valleys and carve scars through wilderness with transmission lines. Grasslands were grazed to exhaustion, and native species from elusive pumas to the endangered huemul deer were vanishing from their ancient ranges.

For Tompkins, this wasn’t just about scenery; it was about preserving a living system millions of years in the making. The loss of Patagonia’s vast, intact ecosystems would be irreversible and, in his view, morally unacceptable. Standing in those windswept valleys, he made a decision that would define the rest of his life: to protect these lands not as a symbolic gesture, but as a personal obligation. That vow would grow into one of the most ambitious private conservation projects in history.

From Fashion Mogul to Conservationist

Before Doug Tompkins became one of the most influential private conservationists in the world, he was a force in fashion and outdoor gear. In the 1960s, he co-founded The North Face, then a small San Francisco shop selling climbing and skiing equipment. Just a few years later, with his first wife, Susie, he launched Esprit, a clothing brand that grew into a global powerhouse. By the late 1980s, Esprit was generating billions in sales, and Tompkins was part of the corporate elite shaping consumer tastes worldwide.

But behind the success, he was growing uneasy. The very industry that had made his fortune was also feeding a culture of overconsumption the same culture that, in his view, was exhausting the planet’s resources. “I just realized what I was doing was making a lot of stuff nobody needed and pushing a consumerist society,” he would later admit. By 1989, both his marriage and his commitment to the corporate world had ended. He sold his stake in Esprit, walked away from the business empire he had built, and turned toward a radically different purpose.

That same year, Tompkins moved to southern Chile, drawn back to the landscapes he had fallen in love with decades earlier. Inspired by the U.S. tradition of conservation philanthropy from John Muir to the Rockefellers he began quietly buying tracts of land in Patagonia. His guiding idea was audacious in its simplicity: purchase ecologically critical wilderness, restore it, and eventually donate it to the public as national parks. Not for profit, not for naming rights, but to ensure that the wild places stayed wild.

His first major initiative, the creation of Pumalín Park in 1992, began with 275,000 hectares of temperate rainforest sheltering ancient Alerce trees. It was a bold, highly visible statement that his new life’s work had begun. And unlike many philanthropists who operate from afar, Tompkins was hands-on from the start — flying small planes over potential acquisitions, debating the placement of trails, sourcing rare native seeds for reforestation. He applied the same entrepreneurial drive that had built his companies, but this time the goal wasn’t market share — it was ecological resilience.

Building Parks, Restoring Ecosystems

Some of their earliest purchases formed the heart of Pumalín Park in Chile, nearly 800,000 acres of temperate rainforest sheltering ancient Alerce trees, many more than a thousand years old. In Argentina, they acquired worn-out sheep ranches that would become Patagonia National Park. Restoring these landscapes meant more than fencing them off it meant undoing decades of ecological damage. Over 300 miles of barbed wire were removed to reopen wildlife corridors. Native grasses returned where cattle had once stripped the earth bare, and the silence of abandoned pastures gave way to the calls of pumas, rheas, and huemul deer reclaiming their ranges.

The Tompkins’ vision extended beyond protection; it was about making ecosystems function again. They reintroduced long-absent species, from pampas deer to giant anteaters, and invested in restoring wetlands and grasslands. Infrastructure was built with an eye toward both conservation and access: visitor centers, trails, and campgrounds encouraged eco-tourism as a sustainable alternative to extractive industries. The parks became engines for local economies employing rangers, biologists, trail builders, and even organic farmers supplying park restaurants.

Tompkins’ efforts began as personal projects but eventually drew the interest of national governments. In collaboration with Chile and Argentina, his land donations became part of a network of newly designated protected areas that, combined, safeguard over 10 million acres from logging, mining, industrial farming, and hydroelectric projects. It was an unprecedented public–private partnership in South American conservation.

For Tompkins, these projects were never charity in the conventional sense. He called it “paying the rent” for living on Earth a recognition that safeguarding wild places was not a gift to future generations but a moral debt owed in the present.

Navigating Suspicion, Politics, and Cultural Barriers

Rumors quickly took root. Some claimed the couple were CIA operatives; others insisted they were plotting to split Chile in half, create a Zionist enclave, or monopolize the region’s fresh water supply. In one province, a local superintendent kept a thick file on Tompkins in his office, while the army stationed a base near Pumalín Park to “monitor” the situation. Even the Catholic Church expressed concern. In a region where resource extraction logging, mining, and hydroelectric power is a pillar of economic development, the idea of locking away fertile valleys and powerful rivers “just for nature” clashed with deeply ingrained economic and political priorities.

Land use in Patagonia is inseparable from national identity. Tompkins’ holdings stretched from the Andes to the Pacific coast, in one case spanning a 44-mile corridor along the Argentine border. To critics, it looked like a geopolitical maneuver. Wildland philanthropy was a foreign concept in Chile, where environmental advocacy had long been a fringe cause. As journalist Jimmy Langman observed, in the mid-1990s anyone speaking out on conservation could be dismissed as “a radical, almost a communist.”

The Tompkinses understood that protecting land wasn’t only a legal or ecological challenge it was a social one. They opened their parks to the public, invited skeptical politicians to visit, and made a deliberate choice to hire locally. Former ranch hands became park rangers. Farmers began supplying organic produce to park facilities. Nearby villages saw a rise in eco-tourism, creating sustainable jobs and giving younger generations reasons to stay rather than migrate to cities.

Over time, the narrative began to shift. As restored landscapes flourished and wildlife returned, communities could see and benefit from the results. By 2017, when the Chilean government officially designated Pumalín Park as a national park, the move was widely celebrated as a model for conservation partnerships.

Still, Tompkins never expected universal approval. “First of all, you never know if you’re doing the right thing,” he once admitted. “But the risk of something negative coming from this seems rather small compared with taking an exploitive approach.” For him, mistrust, political resistance, and cultural friction were not obstacles to be avoided they were part of the work. In Patagonia, the fight to keep the land wild was never going to be easy.

A Life at Full Tilt and a Sudden End

In December 2015, Tompkins joined a group of old friends including Yvon Chouinard and climber Rick Ridgeway for what was meant to be a relaxed five-day kayaking trip on Chile’s vast Lake General Carrera. At over 21 times the size of Manhattan, with water temperatures hovering around 4°C (39°F) even in summer, the lake is as treacherous as it is beautiful. Its turquoise waters can be mirror-smooth one moment and whipped into towering swells the next.

On the fourth day, gale-force winds rose suddenly, pushing up 2.5-meter waves. Tompkins and Ridgeway capsized. Unable to right their kayak, they clung to it as their companions attempted a rescue. For over an hour, they fought the wind, cold, and waves until a helicopter arrived. The craft, unable to lift him directly from the water, dragged him and a rescuer to shore. By then, hypothermia had set in; Tompkins’ body temperature had dropped to 19°C (66°F). Despite emergency care, he died later that day. He was 72.

The news stunned friends, colleagues, and environmentalists. Tom Butler of Conservacion Patagonica called it “a total shock” ironic that a man who had survived so many dangerous expeditions should perish on what was meant to be a nostalgic, low-risk outing. Yvon Chouinard described Tompkins as “a more worried incarnation” of himself someone deeply concerned about the planet’s future and compelled to act.

For Kris McDivitt Tompkins, the loss was both personal and professional. “I was, I am, madly in love with him until the day he died,” she said. Yet she knew their work was unfinished. Within a year, she finalized landmark agreements with the governments of Chile and Argentina to create and expand national parks protecting more than 10 million acres the largest such handover in history.

The Legacy and the Larger Questions

There is an undeniable irony in the fact that Tompkins’ conservation efforts were financed by profits from industries rooted in consumerism the same culture he came to reject. Yet this paradox is part of what makes his legacy compelling. It shows that past complicity in environmental harm does not preclude meaningful action later in life. For Tompkins, the choice was never between perfection and inaction; it was between continuing business as usual or committing his resources to the fight for wild places.

Tompkins’ model demonstrates the agility and ambition that private conservation can bring acquiring and restoring land faster than governments often can. But his story also highlights the tensions such projects can ignite, especially when led by foreigners in politically sensitive regions. Critics in Chile and Argentina worried about sovereignty, local land rights, and the concentration of power in private hands. Supporters point to thriving ecosystems and national park expansions as proof of the approach’s value.

The debate is far from settled: Are wealthy individuals better positioned than governments to protect nature? Or does relying on private fortunes risk turning conservation into a patchwork of personal priorities rather than a coordinated public good? Tompkins’ life suggests the answer may lie somewhere in between a recognition that public and private actors must work together, each bringing their strengths to the table.

Perhaps Tompkins’ most enduring gift is the challenge his life poses: What will you protect? As Kris McDivitt Tompkins put it, “Abdication is not a possibility… Whoever you are, wherever your interest lies, whatever you’ve fallen in love with you get out of bed every morning and you do something.” His parks are not just destinations; they are living testaments to the idea that protecting what you love is a moral obligation, whether that’s a neighborhood green space or a million acres of wilderness.

Carrying the Torch Forward

Doug Tompkins’ life was proof that protecting nature is not a matter of convenience, but of conviction. His decision to trade corporate boardrooms for windswept valleys showed that one person, armed with resources and resolve, can permanently alter the fate of landscapes. Yet his story is not only about the millions of acres he saved it’s about the idea that the work of conservation belongs to everyone.

Not all of us can buy a national park, but every one of us has something worth defending: a neighborhood stream, a patch of forest, a stretch of coastline, or the air above our cities. The tools may be different organizing clean-ups, supporting local conservation groups, pushing for policy change but the principle is the same. As Tompkins believed, the wild will not save itself; it needs hands, hearts, and the willingness to act.

His legacy invites us to ask, without romanticism or evasion: What will you fight to protect? The answer doesn’t have to be grand to matter. It just has to begin here, now, with you.