American conservationist (born 1950) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kristine Tompkins (born June 1950) is an American conservationist. Tompkins is the president and co-founder of Tompkins Conservation and former CEO of Patagonia, Inc..[1]
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Kris Tompkins | |
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Tompkins in 2015 | |
| Born | Kristine McDivitt June 1950 (age 74) Santa Paula, California, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Conservationist, businesswoman |
| Organization(s) | Patagonia, Tompkins Conservation |
| Spouse | |
| Website | tompkinsconservation |
Born Kristine McDivitt in southern California, she spent most of her childhood on her great-grandfather’s ranch. She spent some early years in Venezuela, where her father worked for an oil company.[2] She attended college at the College of Idaho in Caldwell,[3] where she competed in ski-racing.
In 1973, she returned to California and began working for Yvon Chouinard. She played a key role in transforming his small piton business into Patagonia, Inc.[4], eventually becoming the company's first CEO, a role she held until her retirement in 1993.
In 1993, Tompkins retired from Patagonia and married Doug Tompkins, founder of The North Face clothing company and co-founder of Esprit. The Tompkins moved to Chile and focused their efforts on the preservation of national parks and established several nonprofit organizations including the Conservation Land Trust, The Foundation For Deep Ecology and Conservacion Patagonica, all of which have now consolidated under Tompkins Conservation.[3] In 1991, Doug Tompkins began acquiring private land for conservation in Chile’s Los Lagos Region, managing it as a public-access park within the threatened Valdivian temperate rainforest. Pumalín Park was granted official nature sanctuary status in 2005 and became a national park in 2018. This designation followed Tompkins Conservation's donation of nearly 725,000 acres to help establish the new park, Pumalin Douglas Tompkins National Park, which covers approximately 1 million acres. It is named in honor of its founder.[5][6][7]
The Tompkins' conservation efforts expanded to Argentina, starting with the Iberá Wetlands of the Corrientes province. In the wetland ecosystem, they have launched projects to reintroduce extirpated species, such as the giant anteater, jaguar, red-and-green macaw, and giant river otter.[8][9] The rewilding work in Ibera, as well as many other projects in the country, is now carried out by Rewilding Argentina, the team assembled by Kris and Doug, led by Sofia Heinonen.
In January 2018, on behalf of Tompkins Conservation, Tompkins and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet signed decrees to create five new national parks in Chile and expand three others, adding a total of 10.3 million acres of new national parklands to Chile. One million acres of land came from Tompkins Conservation, with the Chilean government providing the rest in federally controlled land. At the time, it was reported as the largest ever donation of land from a private entity to a country in South America.[10][11]
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