Rewilding 15 Million Acres: Why True Wealth Means More Than Money with Kristine Tompkins
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Nate Hagens
4.8 • 552 Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2025
⏱️ 73 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
While the wealth of the world's richest individuals continues to accumulate year after year, funding billions into AI, technology, and innovation, our true wealth—the planet's natural ecosystems—receives only a fraction of the funding needed for restoration and protection. What can we learn from those rare individuals who have dedicated their lives to conserving and rewilding the Earth, choosing to invest in nature rather than the next market breakthrough?
Today Nate is joined by conservationist Kristine Tompkins, to discuss her decades of work on conservation initiatives in South America, the value of personal responsibility, and how she has cultivated a way of living without fear in taking on unprecedented environmental challenges. Kristine also reflects on the limitations of money as a metric for success and fulfillment, advocating instead for using wealth towards bettering the ecological state of our planet and rediscovering the joy of connecting with humanity's place in nature.
How can we, as individuals, 'earn' hope for the future of our planet through engaging in conservation work? What can be learned from upending industrial norms to restore a personal relationship with the natural world? Finally, how can embracing individual responsibility lead us away from passive activism to usher in active and meaningful work in service of all life on Earth?
(Conversation recorded on January 29th, 2025)
About Kristine Tompkins:
Kristine Tompkins is an American conservationist and the president and co-founder of Tompkins Conservation, as well as the former CEO of Patagonia. For nearly thirty years, alongside her late husband Doug Tompkins, she has committed her career to protecting and restoring wild beauty and biodiversity by creating national parks, restoring wildlife, inspiring activism, and fostering economic vitality as a result of conservation.
As the president of Tompkins Conservation, Kristine Tompkins oversees a multitude of projects rewilding the Americas. Having protected approximately 15 million acres of parklands in Chile and Argentina through Tompkins Conservation and its partners, Kristine and Douglas Tompkins are considered some of the most successful national park-oriented philanthropists in history.
Photography Credits for Kristine Tompkins Headshot: Adam Amengual
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | If the accumulation of wealth is the game, it's pretty boring. |
| 0:05.4 | It's not enough to be wealthy anymore. |
| 0:07.3 | It is, what did you do with the assets you had? |
| 0:10.7 | And I don't mean just financial. |
| 0:12.8 | I mean your arms and legs and your mind and your love |
| 0:16.1 | and your assets as a social mover and shaker. |
| 0:20.7 | Then your life gets really interesting. |
| 0:26.5 | You're listening to The Great Simplification. I'm Nate Higgins. On this show, we describe how |
| 0:32.5 | energy, the economy, the environment, and human behavior all fit together and what it might mean for our future. |
| 0:39.8 | By sharing insights from global thinkers, we hope to inform and inspire more humans to play |
| 0:45.8 | emergent roles in the coming great simplification. |
| 1:07.0 | Today, I am pleased to be joined by Christine Tompkins, the president and co-founder of Tompkins Conservation and former CEO of the apparel company, Patagonia. |
| 1:13.9 | For nearly 30 years, along with her late husband, Doug Tompkins, she has committed her career to protecting and restoring wild beauty and biodiversity in South America by creating parks, restoring |
| 1:21.3 | wildlife, inspiring activism, and fostering economic vitality as a result of her conservation efforts. |
| 1:29.3 | Through this work, Tompkins' conservation and its partners have protected approximately |
| 1:33.9 | 15 million acres of parklands in Chile and Argentina. |
| 1:40.0 | This conversation with Christine about her years at Patagonia, her shift towards full-time conservation, and her mindset towards diving into these uncharted projects in her life exemplifies what it means to use power in service of life. |
| 1:58.1 | When hearing about Christine's story, I ask you to consider what power you hold in your |
| 2:04.0 | own life through your skills, your community, your network, and your voice, and what might you do |
| 2:11.7 | with it? Additionally, if you are enjoying this podcast, I invite you to subscribe to our substack newsletter |
| 2:19.1 | where you can read more about the system science underpinning the human predicament, |
| 2:24.3 | where my team and I post special announcements related to the Great Simplification, |
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