Love, death and rewilding – how two clothing tycoons saved Patagonia

Alongside her husband, Doug, Kris McDivitt Tompkins bought up vast swaths of Patagonia to save it from developers. Now, a year after Doug's sudden death, she explains how their shared vision is close to reality

She was young, spirited and rich. It was the 1970s and Kris McDivitt seemed to come straight from California central casting; the glamorous ski-racing daughter of an oil-industry man who made her fortune as the first CEO of what was to become the billion-dollar outdoor clothing company Patagonia.

And then in 1993, aged 43, Kris McDivitt unexpectedly fell in love with Doug Tompkins, the adventure-junkie rock-climber and deep green environmentalist who had co-founded not one but two giant outdoor-clothing companies, North Face and Esprit.