Meet Kristine McDivitt Tompkins: The former CEO of Patagonia who helped create one of the world’s largest national parks

Kristine McDivitt Tompkins is an American environmentalist and the former CEO of Patagonia, one of the most important outdoor clothing brands in the world. After working in business for many years, she quit her job as a business leader to focus on protecting the environment on a large scale. She has worked for years to help create some of the largest national parks in South America, which protect millions of acres of land in Chile and Argentina. She is now a well-known person in the world of environmental protection because she went from being a corporate executive to a conservation leader.

According to reports, in the early 1970s, Kristine McDivitt Tompkins started working in the outdoor industry. She joined Patagonia when it was still a small company and later became its CEO, a job she held for almost twenty years.

While she was there, Patagonia expanded into other countries and earned a great reputation for making outdoor clothes that are good for the environment.

Her time as CEO helped her make a long-term commitment to protecting nature. In 1993, she left the company to work full-time on environmental issues instead of working in the corporate world.

After she left Patagonia, Tompkins focused solely on protecting natural landscapes.

She and her late husband, Douglas Tompkins, who started The North Face, moved to Patagonia in South America. This area is known for its huge wilderness, glaciers, forests, and grasslands.

The move was a big change. The couple stopped putting money into businesses and instead started putting money into land with the goal of protecting it for a long time and restoring the environment.

Kristine McDivitt Tompkins helped buy large pieces of land in Chile and Argentina through conservation groups that later came together to form Tompkins Conservation.

These areas were once ranches, forests, wetlands, and wildlife habitats that were in danger from pollution.

The land was restored, protected, and finally given to national governments with the promise that it would remain public national parks. This method helped make sure that the property would always be safe and not owned by a private person.

Kristine McDivitt Tompkins played a central role in the creation and expansion of around 15 national parks, covering millions of hectares.

According to reports, in 2018, her organisation completed what has been described as the largest private land donation in history, transferring roughly 400,000 hectares of land to the Chilean government.

This contribution became part of a wider protected network spanning more than 4.5 million hectares, forming one of the largest conservation initiatives ever carried out by a private individual.

Tompkins has worked on rewilding projects, restoring native species, and recovering ecosystems in addition to giving land.

These efforts included bringing back endangered animals and getting rid of invasive species.

Her groups also worked with people in the area to promote sustainable tourism and jobs that help protect the environment. This helped find a balance between protecting the environment and meeting the needs of the local economy.

Kristine McDivitt Tompkins’ contributions have been recognised internationally. She has received global honours for her role in protecting biodiversity and served as UN Environment Patron of Protected Areas.

Many people look to her work as an example of how private conservation efforts can help public environmental goals.

Today, Kristine McDivitt Tompkins is well-known for her work turning privately owned land into permanent national parks. This protects ecosystems for future generations. She has become one of the most important people in modern environmental protection, especially in South America’s protected landscapes, after leaving her job as a business leader to work in conservation.