Until the 1990s, you were CEO of the outdoor clothing brand Patagonia. What made you move to Chile and dedicate your life to conservation?

My husband Doug [the late Douglas Tompkins, who co-founded the North Face and Esprit clothing companies before becoming a full-time conservationist] and I had started to see what was happening to the natural world. We have traveled a lot; we saw the expansion of the industry and the degradation of the places we loved. It was really Doug’s idea to find opportunities where we could buy large tracts of private land, aggregate it and return it to the country in the form of national parks. As we went along, we saw that there was a real opportunity, especially in the Southern Cone. [Chile and Argentina, the lower parts of South America].

Why did you focus on creating and expanding national parks?

In the United States, there were great examples of this approach that worked – [John D] Rockefeller donating land for Acadia National Park and Gran Teton National Park, for example. We grew up going to the national parks of the United States, so for us it was obvious that it is not enough to conserve the land – it is important to bring people to the land, to start loving these places. , so they can take care of it long after we are gone.

What were the initial challenges?

We were the first to buy land and talk about returning it to the country, and we were foreigners too, so that aroused a lot of suspicion – of course. Also, there is always a conflict between conservation and development, between those who want to protect the jewels of a place and those who, in many of our cases, would like to cut down the forest.

Two things happened that changed the game. First, we just decided to keep working and build an infrastructure to accommodate everyone. People started to visit the parks and they were shocked that everything we said we were doing was true. Second, the Chilean presidency changed: a president who was not in favor of conservation stepped forward, while the next president was very enthusiastic about our project. And we were learning: by that time, we were four or five years old, making fewer mistakes and communicating better what we were doing.

It was not a one-way street: Chile cut its teeth against us in terms of conservation, and we cut our teeth against Chile in terms of our own capabilities.

What is the role of local communities in your projects today?

I don’t think you can have long-term conservation unless you have, at the same time, long-term benefits – whether economic, social or cultural – for neighboring communities. They are so closely related that you cannot look at the health and well-being of human communities without taking care of nature, and vice versa; they are mutually necessary and desired. I really came to understand that they are one and the same.

What are the most memorable experiences have you explored Chile?

The adventures you remember are the ones where everything went wrong! Doug and I have certainly had a lot, especially in the Deep South, among the volcanoes in southern Tierra del Fuego, or the Darwin Range on a two week horseback ride in an area with no trails. We’ve had so many adventures there, but it’s about the people you meet along the way.