The organization’s current and past efforts to create parklands, conserve biodiversity, restore damaged lands, reintroduce missing species, encourage environmental activism, and promote ecological agriculture have been accomplished through a suite of nonprofits founded by Kris and Doug Tompkins. As of 2019, these entities have been legally merged and consolidated into the U.S.-based Tompkins Conservation, working primarily through two affiliates in South America: Tompkins Conservation Chile and Rewilding Argentina.
Kristine McDivitt Tompkins and the late Douglas R. Tompkins (1943–2015) are American conservationists who have worked to save wildlife and wild habitat for more than a quarter century, achieving unprecedented success as national park-focused philanthropists. After prominent business careers, she as the former CEO of Patagonia, Inc. and he as the founder of the North Face and cofounder of Esprit clothing companies, in the early 1990s the Tompkinses turned their entrepreneurial talents toward saving nature’s beauty and diversity. They are best known for their efforts to acquire and aggregate private land and then donate it to become new national parks.