Michael Bailey | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1954 (age 69–70) |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Occupation(s) | Conservationist, public speaker and documentary producer |
| Years active | 1975–present |
| Known for | Environmental activism |
| Website | http://planetviews.com/ |
Michael Bailey, described as "one of the foremost eco-warriors of our times" [1] according to Rex Weyler, is a founding member of Greenpeace, [2] along with Paul Watson, Patrick Moore, David McTaggart and others. He supervised the original Greenpeace flagship, Rainbow Warrior . [3]
Presently serving as Operations Director for The Climate Summit, which uses interactive videoconferencing technologies provided by Cisco Systems Inc., Bailey conducts presentations and educates people on the growing issue of climate change and global warming.[ citation needed ] He is an authorized presenter of The Climate Project founded by Al Gore, who trained Bailey in the art of presentations pertaining to climate issues, ocean acidification and greenhouse gas emissions.[ citation needed ]
As a conservationist and adventure program producer, he retains a special interest in Cetacea. [4] Bailey joined Greenpeace in 1975 and volunteered to pilot a Zodiac inflatable boat in front of a Russian harpoon ship, resulting in iconic images of the whalers firing 90 mm harpoon cannons at activists that were to establish Greenpeace in the public consciousness. [5] These actions earned him the nickname "Zodiac Mike" or "Generalissimo". [6] [7]
Bailey has played a major part in the raising of public opinion and government support against the whaling industry [8] and as an official observer at the International Whaling Commission.[ citation needed ]
Featured on the cover of a National Geographic magazine, Earthtrust was the first environmental organization to enter Kuwait after the 1991 Gulf War, with Michael Bailey and Rick Thorpe assessing the environmental damage cause by the burning in Kuwait oil fields of Kuwait.[ citation needed ] They subsequently formed the Kuwait Environmental Information Center and deployed oil barriers to protect wetlands and took action resulting in the fires being extinguished more quickly. This was memorialized in the internationally broadcast Earthtrust documentary Hell on Earth and a five-part Canadian Broadcasting Corporation mini-series. [9]
Bailey has also campaigned against food irradiation [10] and was a director of the Conservation Council of Hawai'i.[ citation needed ]
In 2005, he was awarded the Anuenue Award by the Conservation Council of Hawaii for being the 'volunteer of the year' for his dedication to "creating a better world for wildlife and future generations" by documenting plastic pollution, campaigning to protect the Arctic from oil drilling and for working with indigenous peoples such as the Gwich'in and Inupiaq; including organizing the Arctic Film Festival.[ citation needed ]
Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by a group of environmental activists. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity" and focuses its campaigning on worldwide issues such as climate change, deforestation, overfishing, commercial whaling, genetic engineering, anti-war and anti-nuclear issues. It uses direct action, advocacy, research, and ecotage to achieve its goals.
Whaling is the hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that was important in the Industrial Revolution. Whaling was practiced as an organized industry as early as 875 AD. By the 16th century, it had become the principal industry in the Basque coastal regions of Spain and France. The whaling industry spread throughout the world and became very profitable in terms of trade and resources. Some regions of the world's oceans, along the animals' migration routes, had a particularly dense whale population and became targets for large concentrations of whaling ships, and the industry continued to grow well into the 20th century. The depletion of some whale species to near extinction led to the banning of whaling in many countries by 1969 and to an international cessation of whaling as an industry in the late 1980s.
Radical environmentalism is a grass-roots branch of the larger environmental movement that emerged from an ecocentrism-based frustration with the co-option of mainstream environmentalism.
Paul Franklin Watson is a Canadian-American environmental, conservation and animal rights activist, who founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an anti-poaching and direct action group focused on marine conservation activism. The tactics used by Sea Shepherd have attracted opposition, with the group accused of eco-terrorism by both the Japanese government and Greenpeace. Watson is a citizen of Canada and the United States.
Patrick Albert Moore is a Canadian industry consultant, former activist, an early member and past president of Greenpeace Canada. Since leaving Greenpeace in 1986, Moore has criticized the environmental movement for what he sees as scare tactics and disinformation, saying that the environmental movement "abandoned science and logic in favor of emotion and sensationalism". Greenpeace has criticized Moore, calling him "a paid spokesman for the nuclear industry, the logging industry, and genetic engineering industry" who "exploits long-gone ties with Greenpeace to sell himself as a speaker and pro-corporate spokesperson".
Aboriginal whaling or indigenous whaling is the hunting of whales by indigenous peoples recognised by either IWC or the hunting is considered as part of indigenous activity by the country. It is permitted under international regulation, but in some countries remains a contentious issue. It is usually considered part of the subsistence economy. In some places, whaling has been superseded by whale watching instead. This article deals with communities that continue to hunt; details about communities that have ended the practice may be found in History of whaling.
Japanese whaling, in terms of active hunting of whales, is estimated by the Japan Whaling Association to have begun around the 12th century. However, Japanese whaling on an industrial scale began around the 1890s when Japan started to participate in the modern whaling industry, at that time an industry in which many countries participated.
Paul Spong is a Canadian neuroscientist and cetologist from originally from New Zealand. He has been researching orcas in British Columbia since 1967, and is credited with increasing public awareness of whaling, through his involvement with Greenpeace.
Robert Lorne Hunter was a Canadian environmentalist, journalist, author and politician. He was a member of the Don't Make a Wave Committee in 1969, and a co-founder of Greenpeace in 1971 and its first president. He led the first on-sea anti-whaling campaigns in the world, against Russian and Australian whalers, which helped lead to the ban on commercial whaling. He campaigned against nuclear testing, the Canadian seal hunt and later, climate change with his book Thermageddon: Countdown to 2030. He was named by Time as one of the "Eco-Heroes" of the 20th century.
Peter Willcox is an American sea captain best known for his activism with the environmental organization Greenpeace. He was on board as captain of the Rainbow Warrior when it was bombed and sunk by the DGSE in New Zealand in 1985.
Earthtrust (ET) is a non-governmental environmental organization based on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. Earthtrust was founded by in 1976 by Don White, a founding member and former international campaign director of Greenpeace International who has directed the organization since its inception. Focusing mostly on marine conservation, Earthtrust is responsible for the largest conservation victory in history by biomass due to its critical role in exposing, documenting, and ending large-scale high seas driftnetting. Earthtrust has been involved in many high-profile advocacy actions; notably the pioneering use of genetic analysis to demonstrate the prevalence of pirate whaling, the first scientific demonstration of self-awareness in a non-primate at its Delphis lab, creation of the first international seafood environmental accreditation standard, binding the world's largest tuna firm (StarKist) contractually to its tuna-acquisition criteria, and being the first to take charge of the environmental disaster left by the retreating Iraqi army in the Gulf War. The organization was designed to have a high funding efficiency and effectiveness, showcasing the methodologies of "effectivism" and "system steering" as alternatives to standard activism, by preferentially taking on what would otherwise be considered "impossible missions".
Greenpeace Australia Pacific (GPAP) is the regional office of the global environmental organisation Greenpeace. Greenpeace Australia Pacific is one of Australia's largest environmental organisations.
Rex Weyler is an American-Canadian author, journalist and ecologist. He has worked as a writer, editor, and publisher. In the 1970s, Weyler served as a director of the original Greenpeace Foundation, and as campaign photographer and publisher of the Greenpeace Chronicles. He was a cofounder of Greenpeace International in 1979.
William Edward Jackson III served with Greenpeace in its early years (1975–77), as crew member on the first anti-whaling expedition, and as cofounder of Greenpeace San Francisco. A pioneer synthesizer player, Jackson was aboard the Greenpeace V as part of the media campaign to demonstrate whale intelligence, and to disrupt Russian whaling. Jackson played a large modular synthesizer that had been brought onboard, broadcast through underwater speakers, with the intention of communicating with whales through synthesized whale song. He was one of six persons out of a rotating pool of 35 to remain aboard throughout the expedition. Bob Hunter, cofounder and first president of Greenpeace, credits Jackson with saving him from drowning at Triangle Island.
Whale meat, broadly speaking, may include all cetaceans and all parts of the animal: muscle (meat), organs (offal), skin (muktuk), and fat (blubber). There is relatively little demand for whale meat, compared to farmed livestock. Commercial whaling, which has faced opposition for decades, continues today in very few countries, despite whale meat being eaten across Western Europe and colonial America previously. However, in areas where dolphin drive hunting and aboriginal whaling exist, marine mammals are eaten locally as part of a subsistence economy: the Faroe Islands, the circumpolar Arctic, other indigenous peoples of the United States, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, some of villages in Indonesia and in certain South Pacific islands.
Anti-whaling refers to actions taken by those who seek to end whaling in various forms, whether locally or globally in the pursuit of marine conservation. Such activism is often a response to specific conflicts with pro-whaling countries and organizations that practice commercial whaling and/or research whaling, as well as with indigenous groups engaged in subsistence whaling. Some anti-whaling factions have received criticism and legal action for extreme methods including violent direct action. The term anti-whaling may also be used to describe beliefs and activities related to these actions.
Dennis Delaney is an American writer and actor, and former environmental activist. A founding member of Greenpeace USA, he became its first National Director in 1980. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the author of the novel Saving Whales.
Marine mammals are a food source in many countries around the world. Historically, they were hunted by coastal people, and in the case of aboriginal whaling, still are. This sort of subsistence hunting was on a small scale and produced only localised effects. Dolphin drive hunting continues in this vein, from the South Pacific to the North Atlantic. The commercial whaling industry and the maritime fur trade, which had devastating effects on marine mammal populations, did not focus on the animals as food, but for other resources, namely whale oil and seal fur.
Emily Hunter is a Canadian activist, author and filmmaker. She is the daughter of the late Robert Hunter, first president of Greenpeace and Bobbi Hunter, co-founder of Greenpeace. She has been a campaigner for nearly a decade on numerous environmental causes, from fighting whaling to climate change. She is known in Canada as a writer for THIS magazine and as environmental correspondent for MTV News.
The Phyllis Cormack is a 25-meter (82-foot) herring and halibut seine fishing boat, displacing 99 tons and crewed by up to 12 people. The wooden vessel was built in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington, by Marine View Boat Works.
