By . Simon Tomlinson . Last updated at 5:59 PM on 18th November 2011 . Douglas Tompkins is not one to shy away from a challenge. It is a trait that has seen the businessman-turned-environmentalist rise from high school drop-out to multi-millionaire in a career that has been as diverse as it has been successful. Now the 68-year-old founder of outdoor clothing firm North Face and women's fashion chain Esprit looks as though he may close to realising another dream - his long-held and passionate attempts to create a vast nature reserve in Argentina. Green aspirations: North Face and Esprit founder Douglas Tompkins at his property in Ibera, Argentina, in 2009 where he wants to donate 370,000 acres of land to the government to create a new national park . Need for preservation: A group of caymans in Laguna Ibera at the Esteros del Ibera, which is thought to be the second-largest wetland system in the world. It is, however, coming under increasing pressure from agriculture . It is a quest that has provoked fierce criticism from the South American country's inhabitants, most notably that of Land Minster Luis Delia, who, three years ago, described him as a 'gringo imperialist' after Mr Tompkins had bought up huge amounts of land for conservation work. Mr Delia even promised to expropriate his holdings over fears he was a threat to national sovereignty. But since the death of populist president Nestor Kirchner, there has been a warming of relations. This week, Mr Tompkins announced his intention to donate 370,000 acres of his land on the Esteros del Ibera wetlands in the province of Correntes, worth £120million, to the country in a bid to create a new national park. Mixed use: The Esteros del Ibera lies in Argentina's sub-tropical far north. it consists of some protected land, Mr Tompkins's estates and areas largely privately owned for agriculture . Conserving nature: The wetlands are home to more than 4,000 different species, including capybaras (pictured) and anacondas. If the area became a national park, Mr Tompkins's non-profit group would re-introduce several animals previously wiped out there . It is hoped the park would protect . the wetlands, the second-largest in the world, from farming and . agriculture. Mr Tompkins's non-profit group The Conservation Land . Trust (CLT) would also attempt to re-introduce species previously wiped out . from the area. The 3.2million-acre reserve is afforded only limited protection as nearly half the area is divided into farms. The North Face brand was established in San Francisco in 1966 when Douglas Tompkins and Kenneth Klopp created an equipment retail store that went on to acquire the famous name. The name came about because the north face of a mountain in the northern hemisphere is usually the most challenging to climb. It began as a mail order and retail company and in the early years was a leader in the design of sleeping bags and tents. Tompkins and his partner designed the pioneering North Face tents which did away with the need for a pole in the middle by using bendable rods. Tompkins sold The North Face in 1969 for $50,000 to focus on adventure film making and later to launch Esprit. The company logo (pictured) was designed by David Alcorn in 1971 and consists of a quarter-circle with two lines running within it next to the name. Continuing to thrive, the company hopes to double its turnover to $3billion over the next five years. However, . the deal has to break through one last barrier - that of Corrientes . Governor Ricardo Colombi, who fiercely opposes the plan because he . believes it would put the local farmers out of business. It . was hoped Mr Colombi's administration might be persuaded to hand over the 1.36million . acres it holds to the national government. But Mr Tompkins and the current president, . Cristina Kirchner will now wait and see if Mr . Colombi's successor, set to replace him in 2013, is more supportive. 'It . is a political issue, between the national and regional governments. It . is not our responsibility,' CLT spokeswoman Marian Labourt told The . Independent. Mr Tompkins was born in Ohio in . 1943 to an antiques dealer and decorator and raised in Millbrook, New . York, a summer resort for Manhattan's elite. After . dropping out of high school, he moved to California where he attempted . to make it onto the US ski team for the 1964 Winter Olympics. Around the same time, he set up the California Mountaineering Guide Service. He failed to be picked, so he decided to turn his hand to another talent - business and design. Soon . after, he founded The North Face with Kenneth Klopp in San Francisco as a . mail order and retail company specialising in rock climbing and camping . equipment before selling it a few years later for $50,000. In 1968, Mr Tompkins then teamed up with Susie to create a dress-making company, selling clothes out of the back of a VW bus. That company would become Esprit, which by 1978 was enjoying sales in excess of $100million a year. Green team: Mr Tompkins with his second and current wife, Kristine, with whom he has helped to conserve more than two million acres of wilderness in Chile and Argentina . But . by the 1980s, when Esprit was flying even higher, Mr Tompkins had a . change of outlook, which he later explained, saying: 'Fashion is one of the most . intellectually vacuous industries. 'We . had to manufacture desires to get people to buy our products. We were . selling people countless things that they didn't need.' Fashion fix: Mr Tompkins set up Esprit with his first wife in 1968. They started out by selling clothes off the back of a bus . He . sold his share of the American company in 1989 back to Susie, from whom . he had separated, and has since devoted his $150m fortune to buying up . vast swathes of land in Chile and Argentina. Mr Tompkins moved to south Chile, where he devoted much of his time to land conservation and environmental activism. He founded the Foundation for Deep . Ecology in 1990, which supports environmental activism, and The . Conservation Land Trust in 1992, which works to protect wildlands, . primarily in Chile and Argentina. In 1993, he married Kristine Tompkins (nee McDivitt) and the two have worked together on their conservation projects. They have spent about millions buying two dozen properties covering 2.2million acres in the two South American countries. His land donations helped to establish the Pumalin and Corcovado National Parks in Chile, preventing loggers from cutting through the ancient woodland. But he has not been without his critics as many locals began to speculate about this American's motives. Some claims were outlandish, such as him wanting to create a nuclear dumping ground, while others speculated that he wanted to seize control of water supplies. Antonio Horvath, a conservative senator for southern Chile once said: 'If I were to go to the United States and buy a big area of Florida as an environmental preserve and tell people they can't go here or there, I think the U.S. would kick me right out of there.' El Litoral, the regional newspaper in Corrientes, once described Mr Tompkins's projects as 'tentacles' wrapping around Ibera. You will have to what this space to see if Mr Tompkins's latest venture is a manageable ascent or a cliff face that's just too steep to climb.
Douglas Tompkins wants to donate 370,000 acres of land to create national park in Argentina .
He founded North Face and women's fashion chain Esprit after failing to qualify for US ski team for 1964 Winter Olympics .
But turned to environmental ventures after growing tired of 'vacuous industries'
Has spent millions on conservation projects in South America, but locals have been skeptical of his motives .
By . Simon Tomlinson . Last updated at 5:59 PM on 18th November 2011 . Douglas Tompkins is not one to shy away from a challenge. It is a trait that has seen the businessman-turned-environmentalist rise from high school drop-out to multi-millionaire in a career that has been as diverse as it has been successful. Now the 68-year-old founder of outdoor clothing firm North Face and women's fashion chain Esprit looks as though he may close to realising another dream - his long-held and passionate attempts to create a vast nature reserve in Argentina. Green aspirations: North Face and Esprit founder Douglas Tompkins at his property in Ibera, Argentina, in 2009 where he wants to donate 370,000 acres of land to the government to create a new national park . Need for preservation: A group of caymans in Laguna Ibera at the Esteros del Ibera, which is thought to be the second-largest wetland system in the world. It is, however, coming under increasing pressure from agriculture . It is a quest that has provoked fierce criticism from the South American country's inhabitants, most notably that of Land Minster Luis Delia, who, three years ago, described him as a 'gringo imperialist' after Mr Tompkins had bought up huge amounts of land for conservation work. Mr Delia even promised to expropriate his holdings over fears he was a threat to national sovereignty. But since the death of populist president Nestor Kirchner, there has been a warming of relations. This week, Mr Tompkins announced his intention to donate 370,000 acres of his land on the Esteros del Ibera wetlands in the province of Correntes, worth £120million, to the country in a bid to create a new national park. Mixed use: The Esteros del Ibera lies in Argentina's sub-tropical far north. it consists of some protected land, Mr Tompkins's estates and areas largely privately owned for agriculture . Conserving nature: The wetlands are home to more than 4,000 different species, including capybaras (pictured) and anacondas. If the area became a national park, Mr Tompkins's non-profit group would re-introduce several animals previously wiped out there . It is hoped the park would protect . the wetlands, the second-largest in the world, from farming and . agriculture. Mr Tompkins's non-profit group The Conservation Land . Trust (CLT) would also attempt to re-introduce species previously wiped out . from the area. The 3.2million-acre reserve is afforded only limited protection as nearly half the area is divided into farms. The North Face brand was established in San Francisco in 1966 when Douglas Tompkins and Kenneth Klopp created an equipment retail store that went on to acquire the famous name. The name came about because the north face of a mountain in the northern hemisphere is usually the most challenging to climb. It began as a mail order and retail company and in the early years was a leader in the design of sleeping bags and tents. Tompkins and his partner designed the pioneering North Face tents which did away with the need for a pole in the middle by using bendable rods. Tompkins sold The North Face in 1969 for $50,000 to focus on adventure film making and later to launch Esprit. The company logo (pictured) was designed by David Alcorn in 1971 and consists of a quarter-circle with two lines running within it next to the name. Continuing to thrive, the company hopes to double its turnover to $3billion over the next five years. However, . the deal has to break through one last barrier - that of Corrientes . Governor Ricardo Colombi, who fiercely opposes the plan because he . believes it would put the local farmers out of business. It . was hoped Mr Colombi's administration might be persuaded to hand over the 1.36million . acres it holds to the national government. But Mr Tompkins and the current president, . Cristina Kirchner will now wait and see if Mr . Colombi's successor, set to replace him in 2013, is more supportive. 'It . is a political issue, between the national and regional governments. It . is not our responsibility,' CLT spokeswoman Marian Labourt told The . Independent. Mr Tompkins was born in Ohio in . 1943 to an antiques dealer and decorator and raised in Millbrook, New . York, a summer resort for Manhattan's elite. After . dropping out of high school, he moved to California where he attempted . to make it onto the US ski team for the 1964 Winter Olympics. Around the same time, he set up the California Mountaineering Guide Service. He failed to be picked, so he decided to turn his hand to another talent - business and design. Soon . after, he founded The North Face with Kenneth Klopp in San Francisco as a . mail order and retail company specialising in rock climbing and camping . equipment before selling it a few years later for $50,000. In 1968, Mr Tompkins then teamed up with Susie to create a dress-making company, selling clothes out of the back of a VW bus. That company would become Esprit, which by 1978 was enjoying sales in excess of $100million a year. Green team: Mr Tompkins with his second and current wife, Kristine, with whom he has helped to conserve more than two million acres of wilderness in Chile and Argentina . But . by the 1980s, when Esprit was flying even higher, Mr Tompkins had a . change of outlook, which he later explained, saying: 'Fashion is one of the most . intellectually vacuous industries. 'We . had to manufacture desires to get people to buy our products. We were . selling people countless things that they didn't need.' Fashion fix: Mr Tompkins set up Esprit with his first wife in 1968. They started out by selling clothes off the back of a bus . He . sold his share of the American company in 1989 back to Susie, from whom . he had separated, and has since devoted his $150m fortune to buying up . vast swathes of land in Chile and Argentina. Mr Tompkins moved to south Chile, where he devoted much of his time to land conservation and environmental activism. He founded the Foundation for Deep . Ecology in 1990, which supports environmental activism, and The . Conservation Land Trust in 1992, which works to protect wildlands, . primarily in Chile and Argentina. In 1993, he married Kristine Tompkins (nee McDivitt) and the two have worked together on their conservation projects. They have spent about millions buying two dozen properties covering 2.2million acres in the two South American countries. His land donations helped to establish the Pumalin and Corcovado National Parks in Chile, preventing loggers from cutting through the ancient woodland. But he has not been without his critics as many locals began to speculate about this American's motives. Some claims were outlandish, such as him wanting to create a nuclear dumping ground, while others speculated that he wanted to seize control of water supplies. Antonio Horvath, a conservative senator for southern Chile once said: 'If I were to go to the United States and buy a big area of Florida as an environmental preserve and tell people they can't go here or there, I think the U.S. would kick me right out of there.' El Litoral, the regional newspaper in Corrientes, once described Mr Tompkins's projects as 'tentacles' wrapping around Ibera. You will have to what this space to see if Mr Tompkins's latest venture is a manageable ascent or a cliff face that's just too steep to climb.
North Face and women's fashion chain Esprit looks Douglas Tompkins at his property in Ibera, Argentina, in 2009 where he wants to donate 370,000 acres of land to the government to create national park, Mr Tompkins's non-profit group the US ski team for the 1964 Winter Olympics. most . intellectually vacuous industries. 'We . land conservation and environmental activism. He together on their conservation projects. They