The Wonder List with Bill Weir (2015) s03e01 Episode Script
Patagonia: Paradise Bought
1
[sweeping music]
[brushing teeth]
[ambient music]
- Ah.
♪
You know the feeling
of waking up
in a beautiful place
on a beautiful morning?
That moment you realize
the rain has stopped,
and there's
nothing to do all day
but explore?
♪
Well, imagine what
that feeling must be like
when you own the view
[piano music]
All of it.
You own fjords
and forests
and volcanoes,
flamingos,
and pumas,
and sea lions.
The biggest chunk
of the purest real estate
left on Earth is yours.
Then how would you
spend your day?
And if you kept buying more,
what would the locals think?
This is the story
of the climber
who bought his own mountains..
♪
The paddler who purchased
his own rivers
♪
The couple who bought
so much land
they split a country
and then
gave it all away.
It's a tale of love
and loss
and Patagonia.
And how it ends
just might determine
the fate of life on Earth.
My name is Bill Weir,
and I'm a storyteller.
I've reported
from all over the world,
and I have seen so much chang.
[upbeat rock music]
So I made a list
of the most wonderful places
to explore
right before they change
forever.
♪
This is "The Wonder List."
[pensive piano music]
♪
This is a love story.
♪
A "boy meets girl meets
the great outdoors"
kind of love story.
♪
It involves fabulous wealth
and political intrigue
and deadly adventure.
♪
And it takes place
on one of the most
stunning stages
anywhere on the planet.
♪
Welcome to Patagonia.
[lively orchestration]
♪
After Magellan's sailors
found huge footprints
on an Argentine beach,
the name "Patagonia"
could derive from
the Portuguese words
for "big feet."
Or the explorer,
maybe he named it
after a mythical giant
called "Pathagon."
♪
Either way, the monster
footprint of Patagonia
spans two countries
and half a dozen ecosystems,
from vast steppes of grass
in Argentina
to lush mountains
in a necklace of islands
over the Andes in Chile.
♪
It holds some of
the planet's last
truly wild places
and very few people.
[music subsides]
See that road?
That is what
a national highway
looks like in Patagonia.
[string instrument playing]
See that van?
That is our Mystery Machine
on this adventure,
the only taxi
in Chaitén, Chile,
with a driver
who greets you like this.
♪
- [chuckles]
- Yeah!
[clapping]
- Awesome!
- Welcome to Chaitén.
[laughter]
- You just set a new standard
for shuttle drivers, my brother.
[laughter]
All right.
Cheers, man.
- Cheers, guys.
- So good to be here.
- Welcome to Patagonia.
[laughter]
- This is Felipe.
At CNN, he is our man
in Santiago.
I've been dreaming
about this place,
looking at pictures
my whole life.
When was the first time
you came here?
- Actually, Patagonia and I
go way back.
Like, I'm born and raised
in Santiago.
- Yeah.
- But my family has always
been related to
northern Patagonia.
And I've been coming here
for a month or two a year,
like, since I have memories.
- Right.
- Yeah.
- This is your playground.
- Yeah.
- It's a chance to
- Yeah, absolutely.
You have small populations
in huge amounts of land.
- And these are
gauchos raising sheep?
And really hardy
- Yeah.
- Pioneers, really?
- Yeah, they're pretty tough.
[gentle string music]
- Yep, pretty tough,
because they have no choice.
For most of his 84 years,
Zoilo's only close-up glimpse
of the modern world
was the DC-3 that crashed
in the '60s.
- [speaking Spanish]
- Hola.
- Hola.
- ¿Cómo está?
Mucho gusto.
Mucho gusto. Hola.
- Hello.
Thank you for letting us barge
into your beautiful home.
[chuckles]
Nice to meet you.
- Oh, pues gracias.
- So
how has this place
changed in your lifetime?
- [speaking Spanish]
- Wow.
Ten days?
[laughter]
It takes ten minutes now.
[laughs]
And since the road came in,
Lucio is afraid to leave
the keys in his truck.
[ominous music]
- And he knows that
more and more people
want to buy land like this,
for one reason.
♪
- So imagine the local reactin
when a multimillionaire
American
dropped out of the sky
in a little plane
and began buying
all the land he could find.
- My name's Doug Tompkins,
and I consider myself
at this stage of life,
a conservationist
and an environmentalist.
- "Conservation?" they though.
"This guy made a fortune
selling fashion.
"I bet he really wants
to melt our glaciers
and sell our water to China,"
they thought.
"Or dump nuclear waste
where no one is looking."
But what this strange gringo
was really up to
was much more complicated.
[downtempo rock music]
[upbeat rock music]
[ambient music]
♪
- This amazing place
is home to the smallest deer
on the planet,
the little pudu,
the most agile
and intelligent big cat,
the puma.
There are over a thousand
different kinds of moss,
countless ferns,
big trees that were alive
a thousand years before Chrit
walked the Earth.
All of which appealed
to a certain tree hugger
from back East,
an adventure lover,
adrenaline junkie,
big river-rafter,
big mountain-skier,
and big money-maker
by the name of Douglas Tompkins.
[upbeat pop music]
He dropped out of high schoo,
went west to climb
Yosemite's rocks,
and fell in with a group
called "The Fun Hogs."
♪
Summer of '68,
they climbed into a van
in San Francisco, surfed,
climbed, skied,
and kayaked their way
all the way to Patagonia.
♪
All you X Gamers,
you Red Bull posers,
these are your
founding fathers.
But for a Fun Hog
who didn't finish high schoo,
Doug also turned out
to be a hell of a businessma.
He started The North Face
at age 21.
He even got
the Grateful Dead
to play the grand opening.
Remember Esprit in the '80s?
That fresh-design,
clean-vibe, hip headquarters?
Doug designed it all.
And by 40, he was on top
of the fashion
and design world,
buddies with Steve Jobs,
the toast of San Francisco,
but it didn't make him happy.
So every chance he got,
he'd flee the boardroom
for a fast river
or a tall rock.
And out here,
something clicked.
Had this almost
religious conversion
into deep ecology,
the belief that all of this
is valuable for its own sake.
Not how many minerals
or how much timber
we can strip out,
but that biodiversity
is the biggest marker,
the biggest measuring stick
of quality of life.
He came to believe
that humanity
in its current state
is doomed.
There are just too many peope
consuming too much stuff
and not enough planet
to keep up.
At first, he tried
preaching to his customers.
Hanger tags at Esprit read:
"Please buy
only what you need."
But most just didn't get it.
And in '89 he gave up
and cashed in
for hundreds of millions
of dollars.
[upbeat ambient music]
He bought a little Husky,
the kind of plane you need
for tiny, remote runways,
and headed south.
When he flew over
this part of southern Chile,
he decided to buy it.
♪
We lucked out.
- Yeah.
- That's something here, right?
- Beautiful evening here.
♪
- As Doug began spending
more time down here,
he would bring his closest
friends from America,
like the family
of a young man named Weston,
who grew up to be happiest
in a kayak.
- When I was here in '93,
Doug had an idea
for my family and me
to go over to, uh,
these hot springs
that are over this way.
I was sitting in between
my dad's legs
and my momand my brother's
sitting in between
my, uh, mom's legs.
And we paddled
through a wild storm
over to these beautiful
hot springs.
- Wow.
- It was a really, uh
- How old were you?
- Seven.
- Wow. [chuckles]
- And my brother was four.
Yeah.
Doug Tompkins would
eventually buy 2 million
of the wildest acres
in South America,
more land than Delaware
and Rhode Island combined.
And here, in an area
known as "Pumalín,"
he would land his plane
on this strip
and discover the spot
for the home of his dreams.
And it is a getaway
in every sense of the word.
Long boat ride
from the nearest road.
A driveway that requires
an amphibious assault vehicl.
And his house is far from
your typical
millionaire retreat.
♪
The footprint is small.
Energy use, spare.
♪
No shopping out here,
so you eat what you grow,
or graze.
♪
Wow.
- Yeah.
- Beautiful.
Oh, I love the old, rustic
- Mm-hmm.
- Wood.
Gorgeous.
You'd have no idea
how big it is from outside.
And everything
from beams and shingles
to pots and pans
is handcrafted.
Ah, this is beautiful.
- Yeah.
- Locally sourced.
- Yeah.
- No mass manufacturing.
- As much as he could
not support the
as he called,
the industrial complex.
You see it in the windows,
even, as well.
They're small lights.
And you need a big factory
to make big plate glass windows.
- Ah.
- So that's why he made these
small, small pane windows.
- Wow.
But this house
really didn't become a home
until he fell in love with he.
Oh, wow.
[tender music]
Her name is Kris,
but in the love notes
he sent her every day
for 20 years,
he calls her "Birdie."
To escape harsh
Pumalín winters,
they would build
a second dream home
in a very different
kind of wonderland,
and that is where she
is waiting for me.
♪
Hey, I'm a sucker
for a good love story.
Even one you have to chase
out of the lush coast
of Chile,
out of Patagonia,
and into the land of the tang.
Next stop, Argentina.
♪
[upbeat rock music]
[downtempo rock music]
[playful string music]
♪
- This is Iberá,
the everglades of Argentina,
one of the biggest
wetlands in the world.
350 different species of bird
live here,
along with gators
and marsh deer,
and carpincho,
which look like giant hamster.
And they're so chilled out, huh?
They're relaxed here, right?
- Yeah, we don't represent
a threat in any way,
so they are
they are very friendly.
- But what these
chubby dudes don't realize
is that Doug and Kris Tompkis
bought this place
with the hope of turning them
into jaguar food.
Their vision for re-wilding
special parts of South Ameria
includes the reintroduction
of the apex predator,
driven to the brink by
gauchos with guns and dogs.
And bringing back jaguars?
Well, to many locals,
that seemed completely insan.
Because it just doesn't
make any sense
that a guy would want
to turn a place wild
and bring back jaguars.
- No.
- Right, that seems so radical.
- This is, you know, top farm,
you know, one of the best
ranches in Corrientes.
- Yeah.
- So why would you
put all this to rest?
- Yeah.
- And conserve it?
- Leslie grew up here,
herding cows, playing polo.
I needed this.
- They're riding well.
- For every 100 hours
spent in a car,
should have to spend
at least 2 hours on a horse.
- I know.
- [laughs] Just for the soul.
[laughs]
- I know.
Iit is nothing like it,
you know?
It'sit's the 360 degree of
of views, you know.
There's nothing like it.
And the silence,
the movement, everything.
[gentle guitar music]
♪
- But two centuries of ranchig
took a real toll
on this wilderness.
Gauchos used fire
to control brush and grass,
dogs to control wildlife.
[dog barks]
The giant anteaters,
pampas deer, and jaguars
all disappeared.
Tree plantations
and paper mills
were in the works.
But then, Doug Tompkins
dropped out of the sky
and told everyone
on his land and the neighbor'
they were doing it wrong.
- In terms of restoration,
the number one thing you do
in these kinds of landscapes
is to get rid of
the domestic animals,
in this case, sheep and cows.
- When somebody comes
and tells you
you have to
change your practice,
you know, yourthe ways
you operated your land
- For 200 years, right?
- Yes, exactly.
You know, it would be like,
"No, why?"
You know, like,
"What's happening?"
I mean, if I wanted to do rice,
you know, why can't I do rice?
This belong to us all our life.
- Yeah.
- You know?
- By all accounts,
Doug would come in
like a whirlwind
and piss everyone off.
♪
This is so lovely.
- Yes, it is.
- But then,
his secret weapon
would mop up the mess
and make things happen.
Meet Kristine McDivitt
Tompkins,
Doug's beloved Birdie.
- He is the architect for
for everything we do.
And I do all the trees.
The first thing I check
when I get here is
for the wintertime
is I run around and see
how much the trees have grown.
- She fits in
around here because
she has ranching in her bloo.
- I grew up on my
great-grandfather's ranch.
I'm a fourth-generation
Californian.
My grandfather was
born on that ranch.
My father, all of us.
I went to college,
but mostly to ski race.
But in our family,
thethe story is,
everything in your life
is paid for
until the moment
that your university,
uh, diploma hits the tip
of your fingers,
at which point, it's like
a French guillotine.
The money stops, and you are
completely on your own.
- Luckily, she met
a mountain man from Maine
named Yvon Chouinard.
Frustrated by a lack of good
climbing gear on the market,
he decided to make his own,
started a company
with his wife,
and asked Kris
to help build it.
♪
They called it Patagonia.
That logo is the outline
of Chile's Mount Fitz Roy,
the very peak Yvon climbed
with his fellow Fun Hog
Doug Tompkins.
They were best friends
from age 15.
They would both start
massive outdoor companies.
But they never imagined
that late in life,
Yvon would introduce Doug
to his soul mate.
- I had been married before,
but I was never very keen
on marriage,
to tell you the truth.
I didn't think it was for me.
But when I saw him down there,
I thought,
"Oh, that's the person
I'm supposed to marry.
I get it."
There was
a chemical reaction between us
that was extraordinary
in the real sense of the word:
extra ordinary.
[tender music]
- After a whirlwind week
at that place in Pumalín,
she retired as CEO of Patagona
at age 43 and moved in.
Just the two of them
in one of the most
remote places on the planet.
♪
- There's no road into there.
You fly, you swim,
or you take a boat.
♪
I retired on a Friday,
packed two little bags,
locked up my beach house,
and moved to
south Chile on Sunday.
♪
We had a lot of time
on our hands.
We were sitting down there
in boofoo nowhere.
We had no phones.
There was no Internet
in those days.
There are no films.
There's no theater.
There's no family.
There are no friends.
♪
We really had to
look at each other straight p
and say, "Well, this is
we've done this.
We created this."
[engine roars]
- They'd climb into
Doug's little plane
and go explore,
finding these settings
on their yin and yang.
[jazzy music]
- Worry is my co-pilot.
- Mm.
- I'm more of a fretter, a doer,
an organizer.
Doug always liked to say
that he liked leading
a kind of jazz band.
♪
I'm more the orchestra type.
- [chuckles]
♪
- We went on
I don't know how many flights
that, for Doug,
were absolutely fine.
And I would get out
and kiss the ground
- Mm.
- When we got there.
- Just when they found
a comfort zone,
Doug would push it farther.
And on one of those flights,
they landed here,
in the everglades of Argentin.
- I thought,
"Where the hell are we?
It's flat."
- Yeah.
- It's hot.
- [chuckles]
- It's buggy.
- Yeah, I thought
you liked the mountains.
- Exactly, or the sea.
So we took off, didn't think
about it anymore.
And he came back
two months later
and bought it.
- [laughs]
- And then he flew home
and said,
"Birdie, guess what."
- [laughs]
[jazzy musical flourish]
[gentle ambient music]
But when they
started poking around
Oh, watch out for the, uh,
big guy
- Hi.
- Sitting right there.
- Look at you.
- Hello, Mister Caiman.
- Mr. Caiman.
Mr. Alligator.
[camera shutter clicks]
♪
- They discovered a gold mine
of biodiversity.
♪
Ooh, a fox.
- Fox.
Coming down the road.
- [laughs]
- Hello, Mr. Fox.
[camera shutter clicks]
- These guys are
so habituated, huh?
They don't
- I know.
It's like a petting zoo
around here.
[both laugh]
- And together they wondered,
what if they could bring
places like this
back to a natural state?
While the rest of the world
went mad,
what if they could
protect paradise, forever?
- And then we really began
to realize it: national park.
We grew up in the National Park
system in the United States.
So wait a minute.
We can do that.
Let's do that.
Let'swhatever we get,
we'll try to turn them
into national parks
and solidify that
protection and perpetuity.
- Right.
- Oh, great idea.
♪
- But then came
the death threats
and the military plane flyby,
and they realized
not everybody
thought this was a great ide.
[moody rock music]
[downtempo rock music]
[ambient music]
♪
- Doug Tompkins was obsessed
by natural order and beauty.
Beauty as a basic
worth chasing and protecting.
You can see it
in the details of his cabins,
in the flow of his fields.
And there was a time
you could see it on his wall.
In the '80s and '90s,
he owned works
worth tens of millions
by the most sought-after
artists.
And then he realized
he could either collect
masterpieces made of oil
or masterpieces made of soil.
A Botero
or a volcano.
One piece could be worth
hundreds of thousands
of acres.
♪
- That's when he decided that
he could see the art
in a photograph
and that he would
do well to sell it all
and convert it into
conservation lands.
- Mm.
- Why do you give
all your money away?
- Well, what would
you do with it?
Fiddle while Rome burns?
[laughs]
♪
- But no one believed
he would just
give all this land
to a national park system,
so the conspiracy theories
were many.
In Iberá, word spread
they were really after
the heat resistant clay
in the soil
so NASA could use it
to coat the space shuttle.
In Patagonia,
some were convinced that
the Tompkins were
really building
a second nation of Israel.
Neither of them is Jewish.
- We were two foreigners,
buying up huge tracts of land,
all pristine forest,
and not cutting the trees.
What the hell are they doing?
- [laughs]
Yeah, it'd be aif a
- Right?
- If aif a Saudi prince
bought half of Montana.
- Exactly.
- Or a Chinese national,
you'd be, whoa
- Uh, wait a minute.
We're foreigners,
border to Argentina to the sea,
and we didn't cut the trees.
This is some kind of cult.
And it was serious.
There were death threats.
You know, military planes
flying over our house.
There were all sorts of things
it was quite serious.
♪
- Because Doug and Kris
weren't the kind of neighbors
who kept to themselves.
They were out to change
hearts and minds,
practices and policy.
And when European power
companies unveiled a plan
to dam five of the wildest
rivers in Patagonia,
they helped start
a grassroots war of resistanc.
Meanwhile, suspicious ranches
and politicians
formed a group to stop them:
"Patagonia Without Tompkins."
- [speaking Spanish]
- Carlos is the presidet
of the anti-Tompkins
group in Chile.
- Thethe big
Patagonia Sin Represas
is thatmy Spanish
is horrible, but
Patagonia Without Dams.
- Ah, yeah.
I havepersonally have
quite a lot of
information about it.
I think that Tompkins was key.
- Jorge is one of
the financial titans of Chil.
This is his apartment
in Santiago.
- The whole, uh, propaganda
was prepared by
by his people.
One photo is more
than a thousand words.
Well, in this case, it's
more than a million words.
The symbol of that propaganda
was that
you show the Torres del Pain,
like the Matterhorn,
and then you put
electricity lines
in front and
you take a picture.
Uh, that produced a big impact.
Of course, there would never be
lines in front of the
of these huge mountains
because, first of all,
it's unnecessary.
It's not the place.
But itit impacted a lot.
And that was an idea
created by Tompkins.
- Once the idea got out ther,
75% of the Chilean public said,
we need energy
to run our economy, that's true,
but that's not the way to do it.
There are other ways.
And, of course,
there are other ways.
[crowd chanting]
- And it worked.
After years of PR battles,
the dams were defeated.
The public rose up.
Tens of thousands of people
took to the streets
to protest this dam project,
right?
- Yeah, it was pretty amazing.
Even as a Chilean
- Yeah.
- To see 80,000 people marching
in the streets
of Santiago,
trying to defend a river
that they probably
never seen with their own eyes.
- They never see.
Yeah.
- It was pretty amazing.
- But plenty of folks
in Patagonia
resent being denied
the kind of development
that could bring roads
and schools and hospitals,
a real economy.
- [speaking Spanish]
- So the Tompkins' foundation
tries to convince skeptics
that there could be
a whole new economy,
based not on industry though,
but conservation.
They convince guys like Raúl
that he doesn't have to
poach wildlife
in Iberá like his uncles
and grandfather.
He can be a guide.
- [speaking Spanish]
[pensive piano music]
- Ranch by ranch,
they spread the gospel
of organic farming
and sustainable grazing,
of beautiful cottages
and gardens.
They set out to build
an economy that fits
into nature instead of one
that changes it,
while helping farmers
move into ecotourism.
Jose here used to scratch out
a living from the soil,
but now when he grows veggie,
they feed the guests
in his thriving eco-lodge.
all: 18, 19, 20.
- Very good.
- While next door,
Tita from California
is teaching the next generatin
a new way to think about natue
and their future.
- Un elefante.
- ¿Un elefante?
Ah, muy bien.
The idea is that
they're gonna work with
tourists and share about
this beautiful place with
people that come to visit
- Yeah.
- From all over the world.
And it's wonderful they can
can start young, and
- [exclaims]
- Practice and learn English.
Learn California English.
- [laughs]
"Dude."
- No, but the
the idea is
to give them that opportunity.
[ambient music]
- You know, nobody is a propht
in his own land.
You know that saying?
[chuckles]
Sometimes, you know, foreigners
help us to discover values
of our own things
in our own countries.
- While the Tompkins bankrolld
Patagonia Without Dams,
Juan Pablo was the public fac.
- I have absolutely no doubt
that Douglas rocked
our reality,
in Chile and Argentina.
No doubt,
he rocked our reality.
♪
- Thanks to Doug and Kris,
South America has five
new national parks:
El Rincón;
El Impenetrable;
Monte León,
which holds 25 miles
of virgin coast,
full of penguins and whales;
Yendegaia,
with its twisting rivers;
and Corcovado,
with its volcano.
Next will be Iberá,
and then Pumalín,
and finally,
Patagonia National Park.
Such big plans,
so much to do
and share and save,
but then came
the Fun Hog reunion
that changed everything.
♪
[moody rock music]
- 6:00 a.m.
Yvon, the careful
problem solver
has exchanged lead with Doug,
the risk taker, the charger.
- In the film
"Mountain of Storms,"
you get a hint
of the personalities
that could both
conquer Mount Fitz Roy
and start companies
like North Face and Patagoni.
♪
- Most storms in the mountais
are merely uncomfortable.
Theythey won't kill you.
But on Fitz Roy,
these storms are
a different story.
And you knew
you had to get out of there.
♪
- Almost 50 years later,
Doug Tompkins and
Yvon Chouinard
were multimillionaire
executives
turned conservation giants.
But deep down,
they were still Fun Hogs,
always planning
the next adventure.
In late 2015,
Weston joined Doug and Yvon
and a few other men
on a five-day kayak trip
along the edge of
a massive glacial lake.
You say you are a worrier.
Did you worry at all when they
set out on those kayaks
- No, I never worried
about these trips.
No.
♪
- And this was
supposed to be an easy trip,
but something convinced Kris
to secretly slip
a satellite phone
to one of her
husband's companions.
- Yvon and Doug never
wanted to go on trips
that had sat phones.
And I understood that.
- 'Cause it's cheating somehow?
Or it's
- Yeah, it's just they don't
believe that
if you're gonna go, just go.
The idea of having
a backup was
not in their story.
[ambient music]
- That phone is how Kris
learned about the storm.
Winds 50 miles an hour.
Waves 6 feet high.
That phone is how she learned
her husband's kayak
had capsized
in 38-degree water.
♪
- It was quite difficult
to understand
who was in the water,
who wasn't.
Where were they?
Were they together,
were they separated?
♪
I did a very strange thing.
Things were getting worse
by the moment.
♪
And then I ran outside
and I crawled under the Husk,
which is Doug's beloved plan.
And I stayed there,
and I wouldn't come out,
because in my heart I knew
that something was
was very wrong and that
it was grave and that
being near the Husky was
the only thing I knew what to
how to cope.
♪
- Risking his own life,
Weston paddled back out
to his friend,
but the wind and waves
were so strong.
By the time a helicopter
could reach them,
Doug had been
in freezing water,
wearing only casual clothes,
for over two hours.
They desperately
tried to warm him,
but the hypothermia
was just too much.
And he lost his life
to the wild land he loved.
- Great love comes
at extraordinary cost.
You lose someone
who can be
fabulous and exasperating
and almost indescribable
in certain terms.
And then poof, they're gone.
When he died, he took
the best of me with him
and I kept
the best of him with me,
and I carry him
around with me in my
the pocket of my heart.
He left me with so much.
♪
- Personally, I can hear
my biological clock ticking
very loudly in my ears.
[laughs]
We have a lot of projects to do
and to finish
before we're finished.
♪
We'd like to
say good-bye to the world,
having had a fundamental hand
inin creating national park,
'cause that's our thing.
We're gonna get this done.
It's just a matter of time.
[downtempo rock music]
[downtempo rock music]
- And by his actions
Doug became the teacher
we all needed,
and he still is.
And I'm here to say, uh,
for Kris and her team,
and with the support
of all of you,
his work is gonna continue.
Thank you.
[applause]
- After his passing,
Doug Tompkins was named
an honorary citizen of Chile,
but politicians later
revoked the gesture.
Even now,
passions on both sides
run high.
What did you think and feel
when you heard that
Douglas Tompkins
had passed away
in the accident?
- [speaking Spanish]
Mucho, mucho.
- But "order"
is a relative term.
And on a crowded planet,
there is always
pressure to build another da,
dig another mine,
cut another road.
- The question is,
at the end, okay,
conservation?
Okay, I accept conservation.
How will the country grow?
How will we get, uh,
the energy?
♪
- But Doug would say,
that question is backwards.
To him, the question should e
how do we stop growing
and save what's left?
- The trouble is that
human progress
has stopped evolution.
In some places, we need
to let evolution keep going.
Because later, when
civilization collapses,
it'd be good to have
have an evolutionary base
on which to build back.
- Do you believe
that will happen?
- It looks like it's
it's well under way,
from all I can see.
- Capitalism and profit motive.
Your companies gave you
a very good life.
Who'swhy
why can't the farmer
or the entrepreneur
or the rancher
chase the same dreams?
- I mean, look,
we're no saints.
We have airplanes.
We have a great life.
I just think
that the more we know
about what's going on
with the extinction of species,
with the instability
in significant
parts of the world,
that you have to
change the system.
[gentle guitar music]
- So she tries
to change systems,
one acre, one person at a tim.
♪
Weston is still grieving,
still haunted by the acciden.
But following Doug's lead,
he created an exchange progrm
called "Ríos to Rivers"
that brings American kids
to Chile
to see a river without dams
and Chilean kids to America
to see the damage a dam can d.
[ambient music]
- There are movements
suggesting that
nature needs half.
I think nature needs
a lot more than half,
but let's start with half.
♪
You can come
and take a look,
and you can
tread lightly there,
but it has to be left alone.
♪
- People always say, "Well,
you can't go back to the cav.
You can't go backwards."
And I think this is such
an interesting way to put it.
If you're walking
along a mesa,
and you get the edge
and you look down,
and it's 3,000 feet down.
♪
"Hmm," you say.
Okayunless you're
the Roadrunner.
You look down, and you say,
"I'm gonna turn around."
And when you turn around,
are you walking backwards
or are you walking forwards?
- [chuckles]
- And that's the story.
- And maybe you don't
have to go back to the cave.
Maybe you can go
somewhere else.
- That's a complete
lack of imagination
that people have.
Of course you don't
walk back to the cave.
Who ever said anything
about a fricking cave?
- [laughs]
- Seriously.
You walk forward.
You find a destiny
that's a whole lot better thn
the one that you're
looking at now.
♪
Nobody said anything
about a cave.
♪
[sweeping music]
[brushing teeth]
[ambient music]
- Ah.
♪
You know the feeling
of waking up
in a beautiful place
on a beautiful morning?
That moment you realize
the rain has stopped,
and there's
nothing to do all day
but explore?
♪
Well, imagine what
that feeling must be like
when you own the view
[piano music]
All of it.
You own fjords
and forests
and volcanoes,
flamingos,
and pumas,
and sea lions.
The biggest chunk
of the purest real estate
left on Earth is yours.
Then how would you
spend your day?
And if you kept buying more,
what would the locals think?
This is the story
of the climber
who bought his own mountains..
♪
The paddler who purchased
his own rivers
♪
The couple who bought
so much land
they split a country
and then
gave it all away.
It's a tale of love
and loss
and Patagonia.
And how it ends
just might determine
the fate of life on Earth.
My name is Bill Weir,
and I'm a storyteller.
I've reported
from all over the world,
and I have seen so much chang.
[upbeat rock music]
So I made a list
of the most wonderful places
to explore
right before they change
forever.
♪
This is "The Wonder List."
[pensive piano music]
♪
This is a love story.
♪
A "boy meets girl meets
the great outdoors"
kind of love story.
♪
It involves fabulous wealth
and political intrigue
and deadly adventure.
♪
And it takes place
on one of the most
stunning stages
anywhere on the planet.
♪
Welcome to Patagonia.
[lively orchestration]
♪
After Magellan's sailors
found huge footprints
on an Argentine beach,
the name "Patagonia"
could derive from
the Portuguese words
for "big feet."
Or the explorer,
maybe he named it
after a mythical giant
called "Pathagon."
♪
Either way, the monster
footprint of Patagonia
spans two countries
and half a dozen ecosystems,
from vast steppes of grass
in Argentina
to lush mountains
in a necklace of islands
over the Andes in Chile.
♪
It holds some of
the planet's last
truly wild places
and very few people.
[music subsides]
See that road?
That is what
a national highway
looks like in Patagonia.
[string instrument playing]
See that van?
That is our Mystery Machine
on this adventure,
the only taxi
in Chaitén, Chile,
with a driver
who greets you like this.
♪
- [chuckles]
- Yeah!
[clapping]
- Awesome!
- Welcome to Chaitén.
[laughter]
- You just set a new standard
for shuttle drivers, my brother.
[laughter]
All right.
Cheers, man.
- Cheers, guys.
- So good to be here.
- Welcome to Patagonia.
[laughter]
- This is Felipe.
At CNN, he is our man
in Santiago.
I've been dreaming
about this place,
looking at pictures
my whole life.
When was the first time
you came here?
- Actually, Patagonia and I
go way back.
Like, I'm born and raised
in Santiago.
- Yeah.
- But my family has always
been related to
northern Patagonia.
And I've been coming here
for a month or two a year,
like, since I have memories.
- Right.
- Yeah.
- This is your playground.
- Yeah.
- It's a chance to
- Yeah, absolutely.
You have small populations
in huge amounts of land.
- And these are
gauchos raising sheep?
And really hardy
- Yeah.
- Pioneers, really?
- Yeah, they're pretty tough.
[gentle string music]
- Yep, pretty tough,
because they have no choice.
For most of his 84 years,
Zoilo's only close-up glimpse
of the modern world
was the DC-3 that crashed
in the '60s.
- [speaking Spanish]
- Hola.
- Hola.
- ¿Cómo está?
Mucho gusto.
Mucho gusto. Hola.
- Hello.
Thank you for letting us barge
into your beautiful home.
[chuckles]
Nice to meet you.
- Oh, pues gracias.
- So
how has this place
changed in your lifetime?
- [speaking Spanish]
- Wow.
Ten days?
[laughter]
It takes ten minutes now.
[laughs]
And since the road came in,
Lucio is afraid to leave
the keys in his truck.
[ominous music]
- And he knows that
more and more people
want to buy land like this,
for one reason.
♪
- So imagine the local reactin
when a multimillionaire
American
dropped out of the sky
in a little plane
and began buying
all the land he could find.
- My name's Doug Tompkins,
and I consider myself
at this stage of life,
a conservationist
and an environmentalist.
- "Conservation?" they though.
"This guy made a fortune
selling fashion.
"I bet he really wants
to melt our glaciers
and sell our water to China,"
they thought.
"Or dump nuclear waste
where no one is looking."
But what this strange gringo
was really up to
was much more complicated.
[downtempo rock music]
[upbeat rock music]
[ambient music]
♪
- This amazing place
is home to the smallest deer
on the planet,
the little pudu,
the most agile
and intelligent big cat,
the puma.
There are over a thousand
different kinds of moss,
countless ferns,
big trees that were alive
a thousand years before Chrit
walked the Earth.
All of which appealed
to a certain tree hugger
from back East,
an adventure lover,
adrenaline junkie,
big river-rafter,
big mountain-skier,
and big money-maker
by the name of Douglas Tompkins.
[upbeat pop music]
He dropped out of high schoo,
went west to climb
Yosemite's rocks,
and fell in with a group
called "The Fun Hogs."
♪
Summer of '68,
they climbed into a van
in San Francisco, surfed,
climbed, skied,
and kayaked their way
all the way to Patagonia.
♪
All you X Gamers,
you Red Bull posers,
these are your
founding fathers.
But for a Fun Hog
who didn't finish high schoo,
Doug also turned out
to be a hell of a businessma.
He started The North Face
at age 21.
He even got
the Grateful Dead
to play the grand opening.
Remember Esprit in the '80s?
That fresh-design,
clean-vibe, hip headquarters?
Doug designed it all.
And by 40, he was on top
of the fashion
and design world,
buddies with Steve Jobs,
the toast of San Francisco,
but it didn't make him happy.
So every chance he got,
he'd flee the boardroom
for a fast river
or a tall rock.
And out here,
something clicked.
Had this almost
religious conversion
into deep ecology,
the belief that all of this
is valuable for its own sake.
Not how many minerals
or how much timber
we can strip out,
but that biodiversity
is the biggest marker,
the biggest measuring stick
of quality of life.
He came to believe
that humanity
in its current state
is doomed.
There are just too many peope
consuming too much stuff
and not enough planet
to keep up.
At first, he tried
preaching to his customers.
Hanger tags at Esprit read:
"Please buy
only what you need."
But most just didn't get it.
And in '89 he gave up
and cashed in
for hundreds of millions
of dollars.
[upbeat ambient music]
He bought a little Husky,
the kind of plane you need
for tiny, remote runways,
and headed south.
When he flew over
this part of southern Chile,
he decided to buy it.
♪
We lucked out.
- Yeah.
- That's something here, right?
- Beautiful evening here.
♪
- As Doug began spending
more time down here,
he would bring his closest
friends from America,
like the family
of a young man named Weston,
who grew up to be happiest
in a kayak.
- When I was here in '93,
Doug had an idea
for my family and me
to go over to, uh,
these hot springs
that are over this way.
I was sitting in between
my dad's legs
and my momand my brother's
sitting in between
my, uh, mom's legs.
And we paddled
through a wild storm
over to these beautiful
hot springs.
- Wow.
- It was a really, uh
- How old were you?
- Seven.
- Wow. [chuckles]
- And my brother was four.
Yeah.
Doug Tompkins would
eventually buy 2 million
of the wildest acres
in South America,
more land than Delaware
and Rhode Island combined.
And here, in an area
known as "Pumalín,"
he would land his plane
on this strip
and discover the spot
for the home of his dreams.
And it is a getaway
in every sense of the word.
Long boat ride
from the nearest road.
A driveway that requires
an amphibious assault vehicl.
And his house is far from
your typical
millionaire retreat.
♪
The footprint is small.
Energy use, spare.
♪
No shopping out here,
so you eat what you grow,
or graze.
♪
Wow.
- Yeah.
- Beautiful.
Oh, I love the old, rustic
- Mm-hmm.
- Wood.
Gorgeous.
You'd have no idea
how big it is from outside.
And everything
from beams and shingles
to pots and pans
is handcrafted.
Ah, this is beautiful.
- Yeah.
- Locally sourced.
- Yeah.
- No mass manufacturing.
- As much as he could
not support the
as he called,
the industrial complex.
You see it in the windows,
even, as well.
They're small lights.
And you need a big factory
to make big plate glass windows.
- Ah.
- So that's why he made these
small, small pane windows.
- Wow.
But this house
really didn't become a home
until he fell in love with he.
Oh, wow.
[tender music]
Her name is Kris,
but in the love notes
he sent her every day
for 20 years,
he calls her "Birdie."
To escape harsh
Pumalín winters,
they would build
a second dream home
in a very different
kind of wonderland,
and that is where she
is waiting for me.
♪
Hey, I'm a sucker
for a good love story.
Even one you have to chase
out of the lush coast
of Chile,
out of Patagonia,
and into the land of the tang.
Next stop, Argentina.
♪
[upbeat rock music]
[downtempo rock music]
[playful string music]
♪
- This is Iberá,
the everglades of Argentina,
one of the biggest
wetlands in the world.
350 different species of bird
live here,
along with gators
and marsh deer,
and carpincho,
which look like giant hamster.
And they're so chilled out, huh?
They're relaxed here, right?
- Yeah, we don't represent
a threat in any way,
so they are
they are very friendly.
- But what these
chubby dudes don't realize
is that Doug and Kris Tompkis
bought this place
with the hope of turning them
into jaguar food.
Their vision for re-wilding
special parts of South Ameria
includes the reintroduction
of the apex predator,
driven to the brink by
gauchos with guns and dogs.
And bringing back jaguars?
Well, to many locals,
that seemed completely insan.
Because it just doesn't
make any sense
that a guy would want
to turn a place wild
and bring back jaguars.
- No.
- Right, that seems so radical.
- This is, you know, top farm,
you know, one of the best
ranches in Corrientes.
- Yeah.
- So why would you
put all this to rest?
- Yeah.
- And conserve it?
- Leslie grew up here,
herding cows, playing polo.
I needed this.
- They're riding well.
- For every 100 hours
spent in a car,
should have to spend
at least 2 hours on a horse.
- I know.
- [laughs] Just for the soul.
[laughs]
- I know.
Iit is nothing like it,
you know?
It'sit's the 360 degree of
of views, you know.
There's nothing like it.
And the silence,
the movement, everything.
[gentle guitar music]
♪
- But two centuries of ranchig
took a real toll
on this wilderness.
Gauchos used fire
to control brush and grass,
dogs to control wildlife.
[dog barks]
The giant anteaters,
pampas deer, and jaguars
all disappeared.
Tree plantations
and paper mills
were in the works.
But then, Doug Tompkins
dropped out of the sky
and told everyone
on his land and the neighbor'
they were doing it wrong.
- In terms of restoration,
the number one thing you do
in these kinds of landscapes
is to get rid of
the domestic animals,
in this case, sheep and cows.
- When somebody comes
and tells you
you have to
change your practice,
you know, yourthe ways
you operated your land
- For 200 years, right?
- Yes, exactly.
You know, it would be like,
"No, why?"
You know, like,
"What's happening?"
I mean, if I wanted to do rice,
you know, why can't I do rice?
This belong to us all our life.
- Yeah.
- You know?
- By all accounts,
Doug would come in
like a whirlwind
and piss everyone off.
♪
This is so lovely.
- Yes, it is.
- But then,
his secret weapon
would mop up the mess
and make things happen.
Meet Kristine McDivitt
Tompkins,
Doug's beloved Birdie.
- He is the architect for
for everything we do.
And I do all the trees.
The first thing I check
when I get here is
for the wintertime
is I run around and see
how much the trees have grown.
- She fits in
around here because
she has ranching in her bloo.
- I grew up on my
great-grandfather's ranch.
I'm a fourth-generation
Californian.
My grandfather was
born on that ranch.
My father, all of us.
I went to college,
but mostly to ski race.
But in our family,
thethe story is,
everything in your life
is paid for
until the moment
that your university,
uh, diploma hits the tip
of your fingers,
at which point, it's like
a French guillotine.
The money stops, and you are
completely on your own.
- Luckily, she met
a mountain man from Maine
named Yvon Chouinard.
Frustrated by a lack of good
climbing gear on the market,
he decided to make his own,
started a company
with his wife,
and asked Kris
to help build it.
♪
They called it Patagonia.
That logo is the outline
of Chile's Mount Fitz Roy,
the very peak Yvon climbed
with his fellow Fun Hog
Doug Tompkins.
They were best friends
from age 15.
They would both start
massive outdoor companies.
But they never imagined
that late in life,
Yvon would introduce Doug
to his soul mate.
- I had been married before,
but I was never very keen
on marriage,
to tell you the truth.
I didn't think it was for me.
But when I saw him down there,
I thought,
"Oh, that's the person
I'm supposed to marry.
I get it."
There was
a chemical reaction between us
that was extraordinary
in the real sense of the word:
extra ordinary.
[tender music]
- After a whirlwind week
at that place in Pumalín,
she retired as CEO of Patagona
at age 43 and moved in.
Just the two of them
in one of the most
remote places on the planet.
♪
- There's no road into there.
You fly, you swim,
or you take a boat.
♪
I retired on a Friday,
packed two little bags,
locked up my beach house,
and moved to
south Chile on Sunday.
♪
We had a lot of time
on our hands.
We were sitting down there
in boofoo nowhere.
We had no phones.
There was no Internet
in those days.
There are no films.
There's no theater.
There's no family.
There are no friends.
♪
We really had to
look at each other straight p
and say, "Well, this is
we've done this.
We created this."
[engine roars]
- They'd climb into
Doug's little plane
and go explore,
finding these settings
on their yin and yang.
[jazzy music]
- Worry is my co-pilot.
- Mm.
- I'm more of a fretter, a doer,
an organizer.
Doug always liked to say
that he liked leading
a kind of jazz band.
♪
I'm more the orchestra type.
- [chuckles]
♪
- We went on
I don't know how many flights
that, for Doug,
were absolutely fine.
And I would get out
and kiss the ground
- Mm.
- When we got there.
- Just when they found
a comfort zone,
Doug would push it farther.
And on one of those flights,
they landed here,
in the everglades of Argentin.
- I thought,
"Where the hell are we?
It's flat."
- Yeah.
- It's hot.
- [chuckles]
- It's buggy.
- Yeah, I thought
you liked the mountains.
- Exactly, or the sea.
So we took off, didn't think
about it anymore.
And he came back
two months later
and bought it.
- [laughs]
- And then he flew home
and said,
"Birdie, guess what."
- [laughs]
[jazzy musical flourish]
[gentle ambient music]
But when they
started poking around
Oh, watch out for the, uh,
big guy
- Hi.
- Sitting right there.
- Look at you.
- Hello, Mister Caiman.
- Mr. Caiman.
Mr. Alligator.
[camera shutter clicks]
♪
- They discovered a gold mine
of biodiversity.
♪
Ooh, a fox.
- Fox.
Coming down the road.
- [laughs]
- Hello, Mr. Fox.
[camera shutter clicks]
- These guys are
so habituated, huh?
They don't
- I know.
It's like a petting zoo
around here.
[both laugh]
- And together they wondered,
what if they could bring
places like this
back to a natural state?
While the rest of the world
went mad,
what if they could
protect paradise, forever?
- And then we really began
to realize it: national park.
We grew up in the National Park
system in the United States.
So wait a minute.
We can do that.
Let's do that.
Let'swhatever we get,
we'll try to turn them
into national parks
and solidify that
protection and perpetuity.
- Right.
- Oh, great idea.
♪
- But then came
the death threats
and the military plane flyby,
and they realized
not everybody
thought this was a great ide.
[moody rock music]
[downtempo rock music]
[ambient music]
♪
- Doug Tompkins was obsessed
by natural order and beauty.
Beauty as a basic
worth chasing and protecting.
You can see it
in the details of his cabins,
in the flow of his fields.
And there was a time
you could see it on his wall.
In the '80s and '90s,
he owned works
worth tens of millions
by the most sought-after
artists.
And then he realized
he could either collect
masterpieces made of oil
or masterpieces made of soil.
A Botero
or a volcano.
One piece could be worth
hundreds of thousands
of acres.
♪
- That's when he decided that
he could see the art
in a photograph
and that he would
do well to sell it all
and convert it into
conservation lands.
- Mm.
- Why do you give
all your money away?
- Well, what would
you do with it?
Fiddle while Rome burns?
[laughs]
♪
- But no one believed
he would just
give all this land
to a national park system,
so the conspiracy theories
were many.
In Iberá, word spread
they were really after
the heat resistant clay
in the soil
so NASA could use it
to coat the space shuttle.
In Patagonia,
some were convinced that
the Tompkins were
really building
a second nation of Israel.
Neither of them is Jewish.
- We were two foreigners,
buying up huge tracts of land,
all pristine forest,
and not cutting the trees.
What the hell are they doing?
- [laughs]
Yeah, it'd be aif a
- Right?
- If aif a Saudi prince
bought half of Montana.
- Exactly.
- Or a Chinese national,
you'd be, whoa
- Uh, wait a minute.
We're foreigners,
border to Argentina to the sea,
and we didn't cut the trees.
This is some kind of cult.
And it was serious.
There were death threats.
You know, military planes
flying over our house.
There were all sorts of things
it was quite serious.
♪
- Because Doug and Kris
weren't the kind of neighbors
who kept to themselves.
They were out to change
hearts and minds,
practices and policy.
And when European power
companies unveiled a plan
to dam five of the wildest
rivers in Patagonia,
they helped start
a grassroots war of resistanc.
Meanwhile, suspicious ranches
and politicians
formed a group to stop them:
"Patagonia Without Tompkins."
- [speaking Spanish]
- Carlos is the presidet
of the anti-Tompkins
group in Chile.
- Thethe big
Patagonia Sin Represas
is thatmy Spanish
is horrible, but
Patagonia Without Dams.
- Ah, yeah.
I havepersonally have
quite a lot of
information about it.
I think that Tompkins was key.
- Jorge is one of
the financial titans of Chil.
This is his apartment
in Santiago.
- The whole, uh, propaganda
was prepared by
by his people.
One photo is more
than a thousand words.
Well, in this case, it's
more than a million words.
The symbol of that propaganda
was that
you show the Torres del Pain,
like the Matterhorn,
and then you put
electricity lines
in front and
you take a picture.
Uh, that produced a big impact.
Of course, there would never be
lines in front of the
of these huge mountains
because, first of all,
it's unnecessary.
It's not the place.
But itit impacted a lot.
And that was an idea
created by Tompkins.
- Once the idea got out ther,
75% of the Chilean public said,
we need energy
to run our economy, that's true,
but that's not the way to do it.
There are other ways.
And, of course,
there are other ways.
[crowd chanting]
- And it worked.
After years of PR battles,
the dams were defeated.
The public rose up.
Tens of thousands of people
took to the streets
to protest this dam project,
right?
- Yeah, it was pretty amazing.
Even as a Chilean
- Yeah.
- To see 80,000 people marching
in the streets
of Santiago,
trying to defend a river
that they probably
never seen with their own eyes.
- They never see.
Yeah.
- It was pretty amazing.
- But plenty of folks
in Patagonia
resent being denied
the kind of development
that could bring roads
and schools and hospitals,
a real economy.
- [speaking Spanish]
- So the Tompkins' foundation
tries to convince skeptics
that there could be
a whole new economy,
based not on industry though,
but conservation.
They convince guys like Raúl
that he doesn't have to
poach wildlife
in Iberá like his uncles
and grandfather.
He can be a guide.
- [speaking Spanish]
[pensive piano music]
- Ranch by ranch,
they spread the gospel
of organic farming
and sustainable grazing,
of beautiful cottages
and gardens.
They set out to build
an economy that fits
into nature instead of one
that changes it,
while helping farmers
move into ecotourism.
Jose here used to scratch out
a living from the soil,
but now when he grows veggie,
they feed the guests
in his thriving eco-lodge.
all: 18, 19, 20.
- Very good.
- While next door,
Tita from California
is teaching the next generatin
a new way to think about natue
and their future.
- Un elefante.
- ¿Un elefante?
Ah, muy bien.
The idea is that
they're gonna work with
tourists and share about
this beautiful place with
people that come to visit
- Yeah.
- From all over the world.
And it's wonderful they can
can start young, and
- [exclaims]
- Practice and learn English.
Learn California English.
- [laughs]
"Dude."
- No, but the
the idea is
to give them that opportunity.
[ambient music]
- You know, nobody is a propht
in his own land.
You know that saying?
[chuckles]
Sometimes, you know, foreigners
help us to discover values
of our own things
in our own countries.
- While the Tompkins bankrolld
Patagonia Without Dams,
Juan Pablo was the public fac.
- I have absolutely no doubt
that Douglas rocked
our reality,
in Chile and Argentina.
No doubt,
he rocked our reality.
♪
- Thanks to Doug and Kris,
South America has five
new national parks:
El Rincón;
El Impenetrable;
Monte León,
which holds 25 miles
of virgin coast,
full of penguins and whales;
Yendegaia,
with its twisting rivers;
and Corcovado,
with its volcano.
Next will be Iberá,
and then Pumalín,
and finally,
Patagonia National Park.
Such big plans,
so much to do
and share and save,
but then came
the Fun Hog reunion
that changed everything.
♪
[moody rock music]
- 6:00 a.m.
Yvon, the careful
problem solver
has exchanged lead with Doug,
the risk taker, the charger.
- In the film
"Mountain of Storms,"
you get a hint
of the personalities
that could both
conquer Mount Fitz Roy
and start companies
like North Face and Patagoni.
♪
- Most storms in the mountais
are merely uncomfortable.
Theythey won't kill you.
But on Fitz Roy,
these storms are
a different story.
And you knew
you had to get out of there.
♪
- Almost 50 years later,
Doug Tompkins and
Yvon Chouinard
were multimillionaire
executives
turned conservation giants.
But deep down,
they were still Fun Hogs,
always planning
the next adventure.
In late 2015,
Weston joined Doug and Yvon
and a few other men
on a five-day kayak trip
along the edge of
a massive glacial lake.
You say you are a worrier.
Did you worry at all when they
set out on those kayaks
- No, I never worried
about these trips.
No.
♪
- And this was
supposed to be an easy trip,
but something convinced Kris
to secretly slip
a satellite phone
to one of her
husband's companions.
- Yvon and Doug never
wanted to go on trips
that had sat phones.
And I understood that.
- 'Cause it's cheating somehow?
Or it's
- Yeah, it's just they don't
believe that
if you're gonna go, just go.
The idea of having
a backup was
not in their story.
[ambient music]
- That phone is how Kris
learned about the storm.
Winds 50 miles an hour.
Waves 6 feet high.
That phone is how she learned
her husband's kayak
had capsized
in 38-degree water.
♪
- It was quite difficult
to understand
who was in the water,
who wasn't.
Where were they?
Were they together,
were they separated?
♪
I did a very strange thing.
Things were getting worse
by the moment.
♪
And then I ran outside
and I crawled under the Husk,
which is Doug's beloved plan.
And I stayed there,
and I wouldn't come out,
because in my heart I knew
that something was
was very wrong and that
it was grave and that
being near the Husky was
the only thing I knew what to
how to cope.
♪
- Risking his own life,
Weston paddled back out
to his friend,
but the wind and waves
were so strong.
By the time a helicopter
could reach them,
Doug had been
in freezing water,
wearing only casual clothes,
for over two hours.
They desperately
tried to warm him,
but the hypothermia
was just too much.
And he lost his life
to the wild land he loved.
- Great love comes
at extraordinary cost.
You lose someone
who can be
fabulous and exasperating
and almost indescribable
in certain terms.
And then poof, they're gone.
When he died, he took
the best of me with him
and I kept
the best of him with me,
and I carry him
around with me in my
the pocket of my heart.
He left me with so much.
♪
- Personally, I can hear
my biological clock ticking
very loudly in my ears.
[laughs]
We have a lot of projects to do
and to finish
before we're finished.
♪
We'd like to
say good-bye to the world,
having had a fundamental hand
inin creating national park,
'cause that's our thing.
We're gonna get this done.
It's just a matter of time.
[downtempo rock music]
[downtempo rock music]
- And by his actions
Doug became the teacher
we all needed,
and he still is.
And I'm here to say, uh,
for Kris and her team,
and with the support
of all of you,
his work is gonna continue.
Thank you.
[applause]
- After his passing,
Doug Tompkins was named
an honorary citizen of Chile,
but politicians later
revoked the gesture.
Even now,
passions on both sides
run high.
What did you think and feel
when you heard that
Douglas Tompkins
had passed away
in the accident?
- [speaking Spanish]
Mucho, mucho.
- But "order"
is a relative term.
And on a crowded planet,
there is always
pressure to build another da,
dig another mine,
cut another road.
- The question is,
at the end, okay,
conservation?
Okay, I accept conservation.
How will the country grow?
How will we get, uh,
the energy?
♪
- But Doug would say,
that question is backwards.
To him, the question should e
how do we stop growing
and save what's left?
- The trouble is that
human progress
has stopped evolution.
In some places, we need
to let evolution keep going.
Because later, when
civilization collapses,
it'd be good to have
have an evolutionary base
on which to build back.
- Do you believe
that will happen?
- It looks like it's
it's well under way,
from all I can see.
- Capitalism and profit motive.
Your companies gave you
a very good life.
Who'swhy
why can't the farmer
or the entrepreneur
or the rancher
chase the same dreams?
- I mean, look,
we're no saints.
We have airplanes.
We have a great life.
I just think
that the more we know
about what's going on
with the extinction of species,
with the instability
in significant
parts of the world,
that you have to
change the system.
[gentle guitar music]
- So she tries
to change systems,
one acre, one person at a tim.
♪
Weston is still grieving,
still haunted by the acciden.
But following Doug's lead,
he created an exchange progrm
called "Ríos to Rivers"
that brings American kids
to Chile
to see a river without dams
and Chilean kids to America
to see the damage a dam can d.
[ambient music]
- There are movements
suggesting that
nature needs half.
I think nature needs
a lot more than half,
but let's start with half.
♪
You can come
and take a look,
and you can
tread lightly there,
but it has to be left alone.
♪
- People always say, "Well,
you can't go back to the cav.
You can't go backwards."
And I think this is such
an interesting way to put it.
If you're walking
along a mesa,
and you get the edge
and you look down,
and it's 3,000 feet down.
♪
"Hmm," you say.
Okayunless you're
the Roadrunner.
You look down, and you say,
"I'm gonna turn around."
And when you turn around,
are you walking backwards
or are you walking forwards?
- [chuckles]
- And that's the story.
- And maybe you don't
have to go back to the cave.
Maybe you can go
somewhere else.
- That's a complete
lack of imagination
that people have.
Of course you don't
walk back to the cave.
Who ever said anything
about a fricking cave?
- [laughs]
- Seriously.
You walk forward.
You find a destiny
that's a whole lot better thn
the one that you're
looking at now.
♪
Nobody said anything
about a cave.
♪