In 1992, Douglas Tompkins began buying Chilean wilderness; decades later, much of it became the 994,000-acre Pumalín National Park, larger than Yosemite

Imagine buying wild land not to build on it, but simply to leave it alone. That is what Douglas Tompkins did. He co-founded the clothing brands The North Face and Esprit, then sold his stake and started buying land in southern Chile. According to Tompkins Conservation, the organization Tompkins founded, this land-buying effort began in 1992 and eventually grew into Pumalín National Park, a 994,331-acre reserve that is larger than Yosemite National Park. It is one of the largest land gifts a private citizen has ever given to a country.

A quiet start in the Chilean rainforest