Doug Tompkins: founder of The North Face and co-founder of Esprit died kayaking about 9 months ago and his death was discussed here and garnered a few minutes on the national news cycle. I recently came across a great tribute to him I wanted to share.
The US national park system has created roughly 60 properties covering 59 million acres of lands in it's 100 year history.
In 25 years Doug Tompkins, his wife, and his foundation have created five national parks in South America consisting of 2.25 million acres of land. His foundation stands poised to further open five more parks and leverage their efforts to protect an additional of 10 million acres in total.
I'm sure many here saw the Ken Burns series, "National Parks: America's best idea"
But this isn't Muir and Teddy sitting around a fire with passion and the power to act... this is a private citizen of the planet, not even a legal citizen of the countries involved who simply chose in these modern times to make it happen.
One person, 1/6th the land of America's system, in a mere 25 years. On par with the achievements of John Muir, or Teddy Roosevelt. Rivaling the contributions of all but a handful of our countries former Presidents. Perhaps more inspiring as he did this through business achievements, personal wealth, and the actions of a private citizen. And did so relatively unnoticed. A fella who ran a conservation company with the ruthlessly effective success of any fortune 500 company or wall street bank; he just had a different bottom line.
Definitely a hero of mine.
Not too upset he's gone; just really happy he was here at all.
http://tompkinsconservation.org/home.htm