North Face's Douglas Tompkins: Chile offered land by widow

Image copyrightAP

Image captionKristine McDivitt Tompkins, widow of late American conservationist Doug Tompkins, met Chile's President Michelle Bachelet

Talks have begun between Chile and the widow of an American billionaire, Douglas Tompkins, over the donation of a vast nature reserve in southern Chile.

Kristine McDivitt Tompkins discussed the donation with Chile's President Michelle Bachelet.

She said she had formally offered Chile 400,000 hectares of land in Patagonia to be made into national parks.

The negotiations are expected to take two years.

Mr Tompkins, who died in December in a kayaking accident, caused controversy in the 1990s by buying up land in southern Chile and Argentina to preserve it.

In December, Mrs McDivitt met the new Argentinean President Mauricio Macri to donate to the country 150,000 hectares of threatened wetlands near the border with Brazil, with the aim of creating the Ibera National Park.

Image copyrightReuters

Image captionDouglas Tompkins moved to Chile 25 years ago after selling his stake in The North Face and Esprit, another clothing brand he co-founded.

Douglas Tompkins was a globe-trotting rock climber and skier in his youth who was the co-founder of the outdoor clothing company The North Face.

In the early 1990s he got divorced, abandoned corporate life and moved to isolated southern Chile.

With his second wife Kristine, a former CEO of outdoor clothing company Patagonia Inc, he began buying up land in order to protect an ancient forest in Patagonia.

Over 25 years he and his wife invested more than $375m in conservation, donating part of their lands in Chile and Argentina to create four national parks.

Image copyrightAP

Image captionThe Tompkinses bought pristine lands containing lakes, ancient forests and mountains in southern Chile in an effort to preserve them from logging and commercial exploitation

After the meeting with President Bachelet, Mrs McDivitt said that the donation of the latest tranche of land to Chile was being made on condition that it would be used to create national parks which people could freely visit.

"The process will take a long time," she said, " We won't be deciding the timing and I know there will be a compromise both sides will have to make to work through all the stages that will be necessary.

"We want people from all over the world to be able to visit these places. With the donation of these parks, Chile will be able offer a historic legacy to the world."

In 2005, the Tompkinses donated another tranche of land to Chile, 294 hectares near the Corcovado volcano, creating the sixth largest national park in Chile - the Corcovado National Park.