Douglas Rainsford Tompkins was an American businessman, conservationist, outdoorsman, philanthropist, filmmaker, and agriculturalist. He founded the North Face Inc, co-founded Esprit and various environmental groups, including the Foundation for Deep Ecology and Tompkins Conservation.
Pumalín Douglas Tompkins National Park is a 400,000-hectare (1,000,000-acre) national park in the Palena Province of Chile, created by Tompkins Conservation, which was endowed and led by the American business magnate Doug Tompkins and his wife, former CEO of Patagonia, Inc., Kris Tompkins. Designated a Nature Sanctuary in 2005, Parque Pumalín was Chile's largest private nature reserve and operated as a public-access park, with an extensive infrastructure of trails, campgrounds, and visitor centers. By an accord announced on 18 March 2017, the park was gifted to the Chilean state and became a national park.
Palena Province is the southernmost administrative area in Chile's Los Lagos Region Los Lagos (X). The area is also called Continental Chiloe or Northern Patagonia, as geographers consider the Palena Province to be the starting point of Chilean Patagonia which extends south from Palena all the way to Tierra del Fuego. Palena Province is remote, beautiful, and difficult to access. In fact, Palena is one of the most sparsely populated provinces in the country and features a stunning geography characterized by steep fjords, wild rivers, hot springs, and numerous snow-capped volcanos. Chile's Austral Highway is not continuous through the jagged geography of Palena Province. Motorists accessing the area by car are required to take two ferries across fjords to cross the province.
The Carretera Austral is the name given to Chile's Route 7. The highway runs south for about 1,240 kilometers (770 mi) from Puerto Montt to Villa O'Higgins, passing through rural Patagonia.
Cerro Castillo National Park is a nature reserve of Chile located in the Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Region, south of Coyhaique. The park is named after Cerro Castillo, its highest mountain and main attraction. The Carretera Austral passes through the park.
Futaleufú is a Chilean town and commune located in Northern Patagonia. Located at the confluence of the Espolon and Futaleufú river valleys, the town is approximately 10 kilometers from the Argentine border. Futaleufú is the provincial capital of Palena Province, Los Lagos Region. Futaleufú, known locally as “Futa,” is a frontier town with a growing tourism industry based on adventure tourism—most specifically whitewater rafting—but also fishing, mountain biking, trekking, and canyoning. Due to its proximity to the Argentine border, Futaleufú is most easily accessed from airports in Esquel and Bariloche, Argentina. Other tourists access the town through the Northern Patagonia Airport in Chaiten, or vía a system of ferries that leave from the closest major Chilean city, Puerto Montt.
Rewilding is a form of ecological restoration aimed at increasing biodiversity and restoring natural processes. It differs from other forms of ecological restoration in that rewilding aspires to reduce human influence on ecosystems. It is also distinct from other forms of restoration in that, while it places emphasis on recovering geographically specific sets of ecological interactions and functions that would have maintained ecosystems prior to human influence, rewilding is open to novel or emerging ecosystems which encompass new species and new interactions.
Perito Moreno National Park is a national park in Argentina. It is located in the western region of Santa Cruz Province on the border with Chile. It has an area of 126,830 hectares of mountains and valleys at a height of 900 metres above sea level.
Monte León National Park is a federal protected area in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. Established on 20 October 2004, it houses a representative sample of the steppe and Patagonian coast biodiversity in good state of conservation, as well as several paleontological sites of high value. It runs along 36 km (22 mi) of the southern Argentine Sea coastline.
Conservación Patagónica was a conservation group with a mission "to create national parks in Patagonia that save and restore wildlands and wildlife, inspire care for the natural world, and generate healthy economic opportunities for local communities." Founded in 2000 by Kristine Tompkins, former CEO of Patagonia, Inc, Conservación Patagónica first focused on the creation of Monte León National Park in Argentina, the country's first coastal national park. The group played the central role in securing the funds for the purchase of Estancia Monte Leon and in creating long-term management plans for the new national park. As of December 31, 2018 Conservación Patagónica has merged into Tompkins Conservation.
180 Degrees South: Conquerors of the Useless, or simply 180° South, is a 2010 documentary directed by Chris Malloy that covers the journey of Jeff Johnson as he travels from Ventura, California to Patagonia, Chile. He retraces the 1968 trip that Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins took in their Ford E-Series Econoline Van with the end goal of climbing Fitz Roy, one of the more difficult climbs in the Andes. After finding footage of the 1968 expedition, Johnson decided to make climbing the Corcovado Volcano in Patagonia his own goal and, after speaking to Chouinard and Tompkins, planned his own journey.
Horacio Matarasso is an ornithologist and leader of South American bird watchers.
Yendegaia National Park is in Tierra del Fuego in the Magallanes y la Antártica Chilena Region of Chile and contains 150,612 ha of mountainous terrain and Valdivian temperate rain forest. It borders the Alberto de Agostini National Park and Tierra del Fuego National Park.
The Iberá Provincial Reserve is a provincial protected area in the north-west of Corrientes Province, north-eastern Argentina. Established on 15 April 1983, it contains a mix of swamps, bogs, stagnant lakes, lagoons, natural sloughs and courses of water. With an area of about 1,300,000 ha, the reserve spans a significant 14% of the Corrientes province, and is the largest protected area in the country.
Patagonia National Park Is a National Park in Chile with a natural path where people formally walk on tracks
Iberá National Park is a national park in Argentina located in the northeast province of Corrientes. The national park adjoins the 5,530 km2 Iberá Provincial Park to the southeast. The national park and provincial park are both within the Iberá Provincial Nature Reserve, a conservation area of 13,245 km2 created in 1982. The combined protected area is the largest in Argentina.
Melimoyu National Park is a protected area of Chile in the comuna of Cisnes, in the Aysén Region. The land for the creation of the park was assembled from public lands and estates donated by Tompkins Conservation, an organization founded by American conservationists Kristine and Douglas Tompkins, as part of a collaborative project to create a "National Parks of Patagonia Network".
Sofía Heinonen is an Argentine conservationist and ecoutourism advocate.
Rewilding Argentina is an Argentine nonprofit conservation organization. It purchases private land, restoring ecosystems and developing wildlife corridors, then donates the land for national parks. The organization also reintroduces native species. Founded in 2010 by Argentine conservationists, Rewilding Argentina was preceded by Conservation Land Trust, which was established by Doug Tompkins in 1992.
