Doug Tompkins- Hero

[Just Bill]

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

[egilbe]

Thats actually pretty amazing. Ranks up there with Rachel Carson.

[MamaSmurf]

+100

amazing what one person can do.

[left52side]

There is A show on netflix right now that has him in it and alot of things he has done in patagonia.
I forget what the show was called but it is still on there as far as I know.
It was in documentaries about mountaineering and etc.

[left52side]

180 degree south was the name of the movie on netflix now.

[Venchka]

The first two backpacking tents that I owned were from The North Face. They were well designed and built better than they needed to be.
We could use more folks like Doug Tompkins.
Wayne


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[-Rush-]

180 degree south was the name of the movie on netflix now.

I enjoyed this show.