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The widow of American billionaire Douglas Tompkins has begun talks with Chilean President Michelle Bachelet over the donation of a vast nature reserve in southern Chile.

Kristine McDivitt Tompkins said she had formally offered Chile 400,000 hectares of land in Patagonia to be made into national parks.

The negotiations are expected to take two years.

Douglas Tompkins, who died in December 2015 in a kayaking accident, caused controversy in the 1990s by buying up land in southern Chile and Argentina to preserve it.

Last month, Kristine McDivitt met the new Argentinean President Mauricio Macri to donate to the country 150,000 hectares of threatened wetlands near the border with Brazil, with the aim of creating the Ibera National Park.

Douglas Tompkins was a globe-trotting rock climber and skier in his youth who was the co-founder of the outdoor clothing company The North Face.

In the early 1990s Douglas Tompinks got divorced, abandoned corporate life and moved to isolated southern Chile.

With his second wife Kristine, a former CEO of outdoor clothing company Patagonia Inc, he began buying up land in order to protect an ancient forest in Patagonia.Kristine McDivitt Tompkins and Michelle Bachelet

Over 25 years Douglas and Kristine Tompkins invested more than $375 million in conservation, donating part of their lands in Chile and Argentina to create four national parks.

After the meeting with President Michelle Bachelet, Kristine McDivitt said that the donation of the latest tranche of land to Chile was being made on condition that it would be used to create national parks which people could freely visit.

“The process will take a long time,” she said.

“We won’t be deciding the timing and I know there will be a compromise both sides will have to make to work through all the stages that will be necessary.

“We want people from all over the world to be able to visit these places. With the donation of these parks, Chile will be able offer a historic legacy to the world.”

In 2005, Douglas and Kristine Tompkins donated another tranche of land to Chile, 294 hectares near the Corcovado volcano, creating the sixth largest national park in Chile – the Corcovado National Park.

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The North Face and Esprit founder Douglas Tompkins has died in a kayaking accident in southern Chile at the age of 72.

The clothing billionaire died of hypothermia after the kayaks he and five others were in capsized in strong waves, authorities said.

Douglas Tompkins was taken by helicopter to hospital in Coyhaique but had stopped breathing when he arrived, doctors said.

Photo Getty Images

Photo Getty Images

He bought up large tracts of land in Chilean and Argentine Patagonia to keep them pristine.

A military patrol boat rescued three of the kayakers on General Carrera Lake and a helicopter lifted out the other three, the Chilean army said.

The North Face said in a statement: “Doug was a passionate advocate for the environment.

“His legacy of conservation will help ensure that there are outdoor spaces to be explored for generations to come.”

On his Chilean land, Douglas Tompkins created Pumalin Park, 1,120 sq miles of forest, lakes and fjords stretching from the Andes to the Pacific.

Douglas Tompkins also became involved in local environmental issues in Chile and Argentina and helped raise environmental awareness there.

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