RIP Douglas Tompkins

slc_dan

slc_dan

Desert Rat-Weekend Warrior
Joined
Jun 7, 2012
Messages
1,687
You may know him as the guy that started The North Face, but he was a tremendous human. Someone we can all look up to in admiration. I look up to his stopping of dams, and purchasing of land only to give it back as a National Park. A rude awakening of how little (nothing) I've done.

He died doing one of the many things he loved at 72, kayaking.

Better said here.

http://www.tompkinsconservation.org/news/2015/12/09/douglas-tompkins-a-force-for-nature/

Go outside!
 
A whitewater legend, and so much more. RIP.
 
I saw this pic on Facebook and enjoyed it. That's Doug throwing butter bombs at Japanese whalers in 2008.

doug.jpg

https://www.facebook.com/captpaulwa...55430570931/10153645802665932/?type=3&theater

DOUG TOMPKINS

1943 -2015

By Captain Paul Watson

Sadly today I have to report something immensely sad.

Yesterday was a very dark day for the global conservation movement.

Doug Tompkins died yesterday in a kayak accident on the General Carrera Lake in Southern Chile. He was taken to the hospital in the city of Coyhaique where he died due to severe hypothermia.

The founder of North Face and Esprit, along with his wife Kris, the co-founder of Patagonia purchased began with a purchase of 800,000 hectares in Chile and Argentina for the express purpose of protecting the land from exploitation.

Since then Doug and Kris acquired over 2 million acres (8,100 square Km) becoming one of the greatest defenders of land and wilderness in South America.

I visited him in his home in Pumalin Park, Chile in 2009, when he hosted a conference on the destruction caused by salmon farming and I saw personally what he and his wife Kris have done to create parks and to fight destructive projects that threatened the environment of Argentina and Chile.

Doug’s Foundation for Deep Ecology has been a long time supporter of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and many other activists groups.

Doug crewed with Sea Shepherd to Antarctica on Operation Musashi (2008-2009) and was a longtime generous supporter of Sea Shepherd. More importantly he was one of the greatest land conservationists in the world. His contribution to protecting wilderness in Argentina and Chile is legendary.
From The Guardian, February 15th, 2009.
“Tompkins spent Christmas and New Year on the Antarctic high seas, the acting quartermaster on the controversial Sea Shepherd, a vessel he has supported through thick and thin through his friendship with the ship's captain, Paul Watson. Tompkins later tells me that he spent much of his time bombarding the Japanese whaling fleet with rotten butter bombs. He was the oldest man on the ship, but he pulled his weight by doing night watch, and even scrubbed the deck.
The experience of ramming Japanese ships on the world's most treacherous oceans has clearly taken its toll on him, and he looks gaunt. But he is also agitated. It's been a difficult weekend. Over coffee, toast and his own homemade blueberry jam he spent our first breakfast together telling me it was time to "Take it up a notch" in his bid to save the planet. "Greenpeace," he told me, "were wimps. They've turned into a corporation. They hoover up donations from around the world and do nothing. As activists, they are dead in the water. It's time for a new activism to get the message across. We need to take the destruction of this earth and its animals to those responsible - and face them down. We are out in the snow and the wind taking it to the Japanese. Greenpeace are in their warm London offices lobbying politic”
Doug spoke his mind and stood his ground on controversial issues and he always held a deep ecological biocentric view of the world and his responsibilities to nature and the future.
He was an adventurer, mountain-climber, kayaker, environmentalist, film-maker, philanthropist, philosopher, writer, activist and first and foremost a deep ecologist.

We will miss him terribly.

He was 72.

Photo: Doug throwing butter bombs onboard the STEVE IRWIN during Operation Musashi in December 2008.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Similar threads
Thread starter Title Forum Replies Date
Artemus A sad day. RIP Fred Beckey. General Discussion 6
gnwatts RIP Ziggy General Discussion 0

Similar threads

Back
Top