The Origins of Patagonia's Conservationism

Earlier this year, a titanium mine was slated for construction on the edge of Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp, an unusually diverse ecosystem that is home to some of the country’s most pristine wetlands. If built, the mine would likely have unleashed catastrophic pollution in the area.  Then in June, the project was called off. In a stunning deal, the company behind the mine announced it had reached a $60 million agreement to sell the site of the proposed project to a group of conservationists. There would be no titanium mining on the edge of the Okefenokee, after all.  It was a hefty price to pay for a tract of backwater marshland, but the conservationists had deep-pocketed backers, including Patagonia, the outdoor-apparel brand founded by rock climber Yvon Chouinard. Two million dollars of the funds used to protect Okefenokee came from the Holdfast Collective, a group of nonprofit entities that since 2022 has donated the profits generated by Patagonia to nonprofit groups fighting climate change. It is an arrangement unlike almost anything else in corporate America. Rather than distributing earnings to shareholders, or letting executives keep the money for themselves, Patagonia gives away most everything it makes.  That kind of philanthropy is unusual in an age when many billionaires flaunt their wealth with mega-yachts and Wall Street firms work to extract profits from their investments. But it is a structure that is in keeping with Patagonia’s unique history of charity and conservationism. Back in 1972, when Chouinard was still making rock-climbing gear, he heard about a plan to divert and develop the mouth of the Ventura River, which flowed just behind his office and then into the Pacific Ocean, shaping one of the best surf breaks in California. If the plan went ahead, the waves that drew Chouinard to Ventura in the first place could be gone. Beyond the waterway’s importance to the surf, Chouinard and his pals knew that as recently as the 1940s, the Ventura had been a major spawning ground for thousands of steelhead trout and Chinook salmon. But over the years, the river had been dammed upstream, drying it up and killing the fish. Chouinard wound up backing a young environmental activist named Mark Capelli who led an effort to halt development on the Ventura. Thanks to Chouinard’s financial backing, the development was halted, the river was protected, and the surf break was preserved. Capelli wasn’t a businessman and Chouinard wasn’t an activist at this point, but the men shared an affinity for nature and a willingness to challenge authority. “We were both marching to our own drummer,” Capelli said. The check for Capelli was the first environmental grant Chouinard ever made. One small donation had made a difference, and Chouinard understood for the first time that his money could have an impact. Years later, on Earth Day 1989, Chouinard hosted an activist named Rick Klein at the Patagonia offices in Ventura. Klein, a native Californian who had first visited Chile in the 1970s and fallen in love with the land, had come straight off the plane from South America, and he was there to ask Chouinard for money.  He was running an organization called Ancient Forest International, working to preserve old-growth trees around the globe. In particular, he was trying to protect a 1,100-acre swath of forest in southern Chile that was home to ancient araucaria, also known as monkey puzzle trees. Rumor had it that a New Zealand–based timber company wanted to buy the land, situated in the Cañi mountains, and clear-cut the trees to make paper for fax machines.  Klein described the land and unfurled a spread of nine photographs he had taped together, displaying a majestic vista of forests and lakes. It was a rare opportunity to preserve pristine land, he told Chouinard. Klein had already raised money from another philanthropist; would Chouinard help? He didn’t hesitate. Chouinard was in for $40,000. That was an enormous commitment and took even his family by surprise. “It wasn’t a great time for us financially,” his wife Malinda Chouinard said. “Is any time a good time to spend an unbudgeted $40,000?” Chouinard told Klein that if he wanted to raise more money, he should go to San Francisco and hit up Doug Tompkins, his best friend and the founder of another clothing company, Esprit. Chouinard was sure his friend would match his contribution. He was right. When Klein arrived in San Francisco, Tompkins cut the activist a check on the spot. Klein now had most of the funds needed to save a unique stand of ancient forest. As Chouinard grew wealthy thanks to Patagonia’s success, he began allocating much of his money to the acquisition of undeveloped land. He built himself homes in exclusive locales, including the foothills of the Tetons in Jackson, Wyo., and the beach in Ventura. He acquired property in the exclusive Hollister Ranch, north of Santa Barbara, Calif. But most of his swelling fortune was funneled toward environmental activism and conservation. Along with Tompkins, he bought up vast swaths of Argentina and Chile, helping fund the creation of a new network of national parks. He also contributed to a new protected area on the southernmost tip of Argentina, known as Peninsula Mitre.  And in 2022, Chouinard gave away the company to a series of trusts and nonprofit organizations including the newly created Holdfast Collective, which now turns over all of Patagonia’s profits to environmental causes including large-scale conservation.  In its first year of operation, Holdfast made 690 grants and commitments totaling more than $61 million. There were big donations for conservation efforts, including donations to help protect the Vjosa River in Albania. The Nature Conservancy got $5.2 million to buy 8,000 acres in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta to protect a fragile waterway. And Holdfast has already blocked other mining projects as well. Shortly after Chouinard gave away the company, Greg Curtis, the former deputy general counsel of Patagonia who now runs Holdfast, heard about a campaign to impede the construction of Pebble Mine, a proposed gold and copper mine in Alaska. Within days, Curtis had committed to providing the final $3.1 million needed to buy up some critical parcels of land, scuttling the mining project. In total, the Holdfast funds helped protect 162,710 acres of wilderness around the world in its first year of operation. And now, the money is helping protect the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia.  In some respects, Patagonia has hardly changed since Chouinard founded the company. More than five decades on, Patagonia’s profits are still going to grassroots groups working to protect nature, perpetuating, with an almost manic level of consistency, the approach Chouinard first took when he gave his initial grants to Capelli and the Friends of the Ventura River some 50 years earlier.  And yet in restructuring Patagonia to ensure that its profits are used to protect wild lands, Chouinard accomplished something remarkable, turning a for-profit corporation with $1 billion in annual sales into one of the biggest environmental philanthropies in the country.  “It changed the whole way the company operates,” he said of Patagonia’s commitment to the environment. “We make all decisions based on: Is this the right thing for the home planet?” Excerpted from Dirtbag Billionaire: How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia, Made a Fortune, and Gave It All Away by David Gelles. Copyright © 2025 by David Gelles. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster Inc.