Twenty-six years ago, Kristine McDivitt Tompkins abandoned her secure, high-profile job as CEO of the outdoor clothing company Patagonia and moved to Chile with her then-new husband — the outdoors adventurer, entrepreneur, and deep green environmentalist Doug Tompkins, who had also made his fortune in retail, having co-founded two outdoor-clothing chains, North Face and Esprit.

Kris grew up in a ranching family in Southern California, and like Doug, she was an outdoors person whose experiences in wild places had profoundly shaped her worldview. Also like Doug, environmental activism came naturally to her. During her 20 years as Patagonia’s CEO, she had helped the company grow into a renowned “anti-corporation,” and she brought that activist zeal and professional savvy to her conservation work in South America.

Over the next quarter century, the husband-wife team pooled their considerable resources and devoted themselves to buying and restoring damaged lands and creating safe havens for wildlife in Chile and Argentina. Overcoming initial suspicions that they were CIA agents or cult leaders of some sort, they worked with governments in both countries to link the lands they purchased with existing preserves with the aim of helping create a total of 12 linked national parks.

By 2015, with four national parks already created, the Tompkins were finalizing the deals on their two most ambitious projects — the establishment of the million-acre Pumalín National Park in the Andes and the 752,503-acre Patagonia National Park in the Chacabuco Valley — when Doug died suddenly in a tragic kayaking accident.

Losing her co-crusader and constant companion — and the more public face of their joint effort — was, Kris says, like “an amputation,” but she kept the work going with barely a pause, ramping it up rather than slowing down. In April this year, she formally handed over the Pumalín and Patagonia parks to the Chilean State. Her and Doug’s contribution to these two parks, a total of some 932,000 acres, is the largest private land donation in history. To date, Tompkins Conservation — the new name under which a suite of nonprofits founded by Kris and Doug have been consolidated — has helped conserve more than 14.2 million acres in Chile and Argentina in collaboration with governments, other NGOs, and philanthropic partners.

I spoke with Kris over the phone when she was in New York recently about her views on humans, nature, and technology and why she thinks acting to save our planet is a moral imperative.

Making tools or innovating is kind of part of what we do as human beings, right? In that context, what do you think of technology and our relationship with it?

Yes, obviously, there is a natural progression to development. Whether it’s two sticks rubbed together, or flying in space, it is always a process. There is tinkering, and experimenting, and curiosity that drives us to — I won’t say to go forward — to change things. But I hate to call it progress, because progress is always positive, or at least neutral. And I find a lot of so-called progress has been incredibly destructive. Just because we are tool creators, doesn’t make [all technology] right. There is technology and there is appropriate technology. There’s technology that goes against the grain of a healthy civilization.

I study the collapse of civilizations as a hobby. So I think about these things a lot. And I just believe that we’re sort of hardwired to keep tinkering, keep evolving. And many times we lose the governor on our behavior, [and fail] to make sure that tinkering doesn’t lead to destruction, which is what we’re doing now. In general, we humans don’t tend to have that capacity. If we can do it, we’ll do it. And the idea of a precautionary principle as a guiding light to new technology, that’s an anathema to people now. Probably always was.

You’ve spoken in the past about the idea of having limits to growth. How does that translate to technology and how we use it, given that in some ways, growth needs technology?

First of all, of course, we all will tinker forever, but why are we tinkering in a way that is causing our downfall? There’s nothing wrong with tinkering, what’s wrong is that it’s used for very damaging, and in many cases, irreversible ends. Why don’t we, instead, tinker our way out of this disaster? Whether it’s climate change, or the extinction crisis, nobody’s saying don’t tinker. But we are saying, tinker in the areas that are positive and not negative. Live with less if you are here in the Northern Hemisphere. Have smaller human populations.

You know, there’s a lot of tinkering we can do to [support] dignified and healthy societies around the world, and live in some form of equilibrium.

I just believe that we’re sort of hardwired to keep tinkering, keep evolving. And many times we lose the governor on our behavior, [and fail] to make sure that tinkering doesn’t lead to destruction.

And I don’t care if it’s technology in the sense of high tech. Whatever it is, you still have to live within the ecological boundaries of the planet. And if you don’t, then you go the route that we’re going now, which is toward a very difficult end for the next generation of the human and nonhuman world. We have to live within limits. And nobody wants to do that.

So you’re fine with using high tech as long as it is within the ecological boundaries. But what do you think about technologies that aim to manipulate nature in the interest of conservation? Like say, plans to change the genetic makeup of invasive pests, like rats, in certain places to make them go locally extinct?

Well, I’m all for restoration. And, of course, if you’re trying to restore an area or region, it takes sacrifice on the side of species that might have moved in and are killing, say, all the birds on an island. But again, my criteria [for using this kind of technology] is the precautionary principle, and I would agree that it would seem really reasonable to be extremely cautious about decisions like that, and ask yourself: Is this the only way to try to jam some sort of plague? Because I do think that fiddling with genetics and such is a slippery slope.

I know there are people who want to bring back extinct species. I don’t think that’s a good idea.

Can you elaborate on the last point?

I don’t agree with that strategy, because it encourages us to imagine that, oh, well, if they die out, we can make some more. And the circumstances upon which those individuals walked the earth are greatly changed. I just think, if you look at it, there are more reasons to be extremely cautious about that than there are reasons to do it.

There is a view that technology, or “The Machine” as some call it, will go on until it has killed everything. Do you agree with that view? Or do you tend to be more of an optimist?

I haven’t seen really one sign that sovereign states, and generally societies, have enough desire to turn away from the direction we’re heading, that [we] are turning away from [destructive] technology or making the kind of sacrifices that we have to do in order to do that. But if you have, I’d be thrilled to hear. I wouldn’t call myself a pessimist; I would call myself a realist. Right now, we’re not showing a lot of restraint nor possibilities for pulling us out of the way we are headed.

You’ve expressed in the past that humans should live in more dense clusters, in cities, and leave wild areas alone. What does that mean in terms of our connection with nature? If we move further into really urbanized areas with very little interaction with wild nature, how are the next generations to find that connection with wilderness that really drives the conservation movement?

Oh, I think we’re there already. I think nature is out. Our ability to communicate with nature, grow up with it, is gone. I mean at least in our culture. Not in all cultures perhaps, but probably in the majority. I mean, it’s not just cities. Kids in suburbs don’t go out much [in nature] either. And I don’t think it’s just urban people. Everyone is plugged in…. It’s a nightmare. There’s no relationship with nature.

Well, that’s a pretty dark way of looking at it.

I hope that not a single person is found to be standing still at this point in time.

So then all these millions of acres that you’re conserving, how do you see that lasting? Do you see the future generations actually wanting to take care of it the way you are?

It’s a tough one all right. But we need to energize people, and I think they are getting energized. So you never know what’s going to happen.

Tourism is a very, very key strategy for conservation. And it’s good that it is, but at the same time, we also don’t want local communities in protected areas to be completely dependent on tourism. Because one, nothing could be worse than local cultures losing their culture. And two, if you base [the economy]on tourism purely, you find yourselves in the situation of being the handmaiden to the economic circumstances in Europe this year, or United States this year. They need to have balanced economic possibilities, and our hope is that our parks can be a contributor to local economies wherever we are.

That’s always the tension, right? To balance the needs of nonhuman life and nature versus human needs, especially in subsistence communities.

Yeah. I mean, people did [manage to balance that] until very recently. We always forget about that. It wasn’t so difficult.

People used to live within their boundaries. It wasn’t very long ago that we did; we just don’t now. And there have been civilizations that collapsed, the Mayans and others, because they may have overshot the carrying capacity of their areas. I mean, this is not new. This is a story that’s played out over and over again.

But it just seems to be happening on a global scale right now

Yeah. You take the global economy, which, you know, even 25 years ago, a country could be in trouble economically, and the world economy wouldn’t collapse. But now, little Greece can’t pay its debt to the EU and the whole economic system shudders. That makes me nervous. Everything is globalized now, so the impacts are faster, broader than we’ve ever understood before.

And that has so has so much to do, in a way, with the advances in technology. With the way that we are all so connected. We are so used to it now, it’s hard to disconnect.

Yeah, I don’t think you should try.

So what should you try to do?

I hope that not a single person is found to be standing still at this point in time. That [we are all doing] whatever we can do to fight against the trend of global warming and the other things we know about, because as some young person said to me, You’re going to die of old age; I’m going to die of climate change. And that’s absolutely true, and that is a moral issue. Silence, as they said during World War II, is the loudest voice of all. So if people just spoke out and said, No, we don’t want to destroy futures for the human and nonhuman world — just that, just speaking, marching, talking, writing, fighting — that would have a huge impact.

The question is, do we want people to have healthy, dignified lives? Do we want that biodiversity, in general, can evolve in a state through which all life flourishes? Yes, we do.

Everybody has to give up something. I mean, not all cultures — some people live so close to the earth and are consuming so little. But in the Western world, we all have to give up stuff. Are we willing to do that? We have to make sacrifices, huge sacrifices, in some cases, to the way we live, to the norms. Are we ready to do that? Or are we not? Yes or no? And if we aren’t, then put your seatbelt on.

It seems the work you are doing keeps you going and gives you hope about the future of this world. Do you ever fall into despair?

Sure. I mean, it’s not lethal. But yeah, I do. I find what’s happening incredibly heartbreaking. And it just spurs us on to work harder, faster. To do everything we can to be part of restoration and rewilding of species who’ve gone missing. I think it’s an inspiration for us. It’s not a pleasant one, but it’s definitely a motivator.

You know, you have to chip away at this stuff. It’s not going to happen overnight.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.