Proposed by: a member of Georgetown Garden Club, Zone VI

In 1993 Kristine McDivitt Tompkins retired as CEO of the clothing company Patagonia to join Doug Tompkins in an audacious plan to purchase ecologically important land in South America and donate it as five national and two provincial parks. They placed in permanent conservation 3 million acres of biodiverse habitat: grasslands, forests, agricultural land, wetlands, and wildlife corridors. The 3 million acres constitute the most land protected by private individuals in history. They partnered with governments to combine their private land with publicly-owned land, enhancing the overall ecological impact. Kris and Doug developed the concept that sustainable agricultural areas can serve as biophysical buffers supporting the ecological integrity of adjacent wildlands. Their worldview embraces coexistence of nature and human enterprise, providing scientists with vast tracts of biodiverse land for studying nature’s efficiencies and comparing human management systems with natural systems. Doug passed away in 2015, but Kris continues the Tompkins Foundation work. Her visionary accomplishments inspire conservation projects around the world.