In recent decades, the cause of conservation and sustainbility has been taken up by some of the world’s wealthiest individuals. In a provocative piece in The Telegraph, ‘Save The Planet? Buy it!’, a few of these so-called wildlands philanthropists are profiled. Some, including Douglas Tompkins (founder of Esprit and The North Face), have purchased and protected enormous tracts of land. Tompkins has invested over $200 million in buying or organising the purchase of around 25 properties covering 2.2 million acres in Chile and Argentina for the creation of state-run national parks. But others, like the late Paul Fentener van Vlissingen, a Dutch supermarket mogul, choose not to endow ownership of the land, instead preserving them for ‘private ownership but public access.’ more…
