“Over the last 200 years, we humans have moved away from our daily and direct interaction with the natural world—even though we know this slowly evolving predicament is perilous for our survival,” writes Kristine Tompkins.
In a new book, Patagonia National Park: Chile, released by Patagonia—the company Tompkins was CEO of for two decades—the avid-conservationist reflects on the importance of protecting wild spaces, and the benefit of doing so for wildlife and humans alike.
It's something she knows quite a bit about, having formed Tompkins Conservation in 1992, through which she (and, for many years, her late husband Doug) have worked “nonstop” to create seven new national parks in Chile, and expand three others, with similar efforts in Argentina. This book traces the 15 years it took to establish one protected landmass—from the very first night Kris and Doug camped on the windswept Patagonian lands in Chile, to the present, when the park has come to serve as “a model… for conservation and restoration projects,” thanks to the hard work and collaboration of local communities, governments, and the “geniuses of the place."
Below is an excerpt from the book, written by Tompkins herself, out now.
Patagonia National Park: Chile
So, here we are, standing on the eastern edge of the Río Baker, Chile’s largest river by volume, at the confluence where it joins the Río Chacabuco. Together these rivers form the almost-indescribable turquoise waters that boil up and swirl into small siphoning holes as they bend and flow south to the Pacific Ocean. Sacred waters to the Tehuelche, the Indigenous peoples who crossed deep valleys from what is today Argentina to get to the sea. Thousands of years later, estancieros and gauchos (ranchers and horsemen) drove their livestock to the river to transport the animals from the same deep valleys to ships docked at Tortel where their livestock would be shipped to faraway markets.
In 1994 my husband Doug and I arrived to camp one cold night in what would become this new national park 12 years later. Camping along the Río Chacabuco, we could imagine that such an extraordinary place should be protected forever: It was like nothing we had seen before. Now, after all these years, almost to the day, we celebrate what would become one of the world’s largest grasslands restoration projects, watching species whose numbers had been low and fragile coming back in healthy numbers. I watch as tens, then hundreds, then thousands of visitors come each year to soak up the beauty of the park, to have adventures they’ll never forget—those moments when you are absolutely sure that you are a part of something so much bigger, something totally extraordinary.
To finally arrive at Patagonia National Park, you will have traveled at least some distance on the Ruta de los Parques de la Patagonia. At 1,700 miles long, it is one of the longest touristic routes in the world and certainly one of the most exquisite. On most famous “scenic routes” there is a singular jewel from which all attractions flow. The Ruta de los Parques has 17 national parks, a powerful connection of over 60 communities whose stories are for the listening; a strong blend of cultures of those pioneering families who arrived long before there was a road to travel on.
I am 73 years old now, Doug is gone, and I think about the multitude of stories that we could tell rising up over the 15 years we were focused on bringing this new park to life. A park built by Chilean teams, for Chileans and all the world to see—one of the greatest gifts of permanence that national parks afford us. Each of us has believed in the durability of national parks. Early on in our work we understood that, finally, creating national parks is a perfect model of democracy: They are the jewels of a country where all are welcome. Where citizens and foreigners alike can walk the hills, meander along the rivers, and watch Patagonia grasslands slowly, patiently, regenerate forward toward the powerful, plentiful territories they once were. Where visitors can camp beneath the forest canopy that offers shelter from the famous Patagonian winds. Where visitors can sit quietly, watching species interact with one another, and even see glimpses of certain animals—like pumas, Darwin’s rhea, and colocolo cats—that are more elusive. This park is for native species to return to their rightful places, to roam the grasslands and forests just as they have for millennia.
Excerpted from Patagonia National Park: Chile with permission from Patagonia. © 2024 by by Kristine McDivitt Tompkins, Michelle Bachelet, Yvon Chouinard
