Patagonia Land Trust

© The Patagonia Land Trust How You Can Help The Patagonia Land Trust (PLT) was founded in 2000 as a charitable foundation by Kristine McDivitt Tompkins to raise funds in order to acquire, restore and preserve the fragile forests, grasslands and coast of South America's Patagonia, one of the last wild places on earth. Since her retirement in 1993 from her long-time CEO position with the outdoor clothing company Patagonia, Inc., Kris has lived in Chile with her husband Doug Tompkins, founder of The Conservation Land Trust (CLT). Through their efforts, the CLT has acquired, saved and permanently protected more than 1.4 million acres of Chile's Valdivian rainforest and Argentina's Esteros del Iberá wetlands in Corrientes province. The Patagonia Land Trust's efforts to protect the bioregions of Argentine Patagonia are particularly important as leading scientists and conservationists have identified the region as a critical harbor of biodiversity that is highly endangered. Mission The Patagonia Land Trust is dedicated to the maintenance and restoration of wildland ecosystems and biodiversity in Patagonia. As a nonprofit foundation, the Trust's goal is to acquire and protect privately owned wildlands, to preserve intact ecosystems, and ultimately to return its landholdings to the public domain for permanent protection in the form of parks, reserves and sanctuaries.