An American in Chile Finds Conservation a Hard Slog - New York Times

An American in Chile Finds Conservation a Hard Slog - New York Times: "By LARRY ROHTER
Published: August 7, 2005

REIHUE, Chile - Douglas Tompkins first fell under the spell of Chilean Patagonia's lush forests and rushing streams as a backpacking teenager from New York. Today, 40-odd years older and much, much richer, he may well be the region's biggest individual landowner, and its most controversial foreign presence.

His holdings in this realm of snowcapped peaks and wind-whipped shores are larger than Rhode Island and include tracts that timber, electric power and agricultural interests covet. But instead of moving to chop, dam and dig, Mr. Tompkins has turned his properties into nature sanctuaries, open to the public but with strict limits on use, that he has said repeatedly he hopes to donate to the people of Chile. If they can be persuaded to accept his offer.

In so insular a society, far-fetched explanations for Mr. Tompkins's presence here have flourished like moss. Some have suggested that he wants to turn Patagonia into a nuclear dumping ground, others speculate that he wants to seize control of water supplies in a world with a growing thirst, and there have even been accusations that Mr. Tompkins, a buttoned-down, gray-haired WASP, has acquired the land as the site for a new Jewish state."