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Michael Bailey (environmentalist)

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Michael Bailey
Born1954 (1954)
NationalityCanadian
Occupation(s)Conservationist, public speaker and documentary producer
Years active1975 - present
Known forEnvironmental activism
Websitehttp://planetviews.com/

Described as "one of the foremost eco-warriors of our times", [1] Michael Bailey was a founding member of Greenpeace International [2], according to Rex Weyler, aling with Paul Watson, Patrick Moore, David McTaggart and others. He was also a director of the Greenpeace Foundation Hawaii, [3] the oldest existing "greenpeace" organization in the USA and one of the few autonomous Greenpeace "cells" that did not become part of the formal international organization. [4]

Earthtrust

Founder of Earthtrust, an official observer at the International Whaling Commission, Bailey has played a major part in the raising of public opinion and government support against the whaling industry. [5]

Save the Dolphin and anti-whaling campaigns

Now a conservationist and adventure program producer with special interest in Cetacea[6], Bailey joined Greenpeace in 1975 and volunteered to pilot a Zodiac inflatable boats in front of a Russian harpoon ship, resulting in seminal images of the whalers firing 90 mm harpoon cannons at activists that were to establish Greenpeace in the public consciousness. [7] Actions earning him the nickname "Zodiac Mike" or "Generalissimo". [8][9]

He is known for his campaigns against the whaling and dolphin hunting industries but also U.S. Navy's use of sonar and is credited with developing and popularizing the concept of a Cetacean Nation (1993) with The Human-Dolphin Foundation founder, counter culture hero and pioneer researcher into the nature of consciousness Dr John C. Lilly [10][11] advocated by Jacques Cousteau.

Bailey is current promoting Louie Psihoyos's The Cove (film) with Ric O'Barry and the Save Japan Dolphins Coalition [12] having previous worked in Japan with The Dolphin and Whale Action Network (IKAN) [3], a Tokyo-based group of marine activists, which in 1997 which led to a milestone result causing the Japanese authorities to release dolphins due to local activist pressures.[13] He has also coordinated rescues of beached whales. [14]

Kuwait Wildlife Campaign

Featured on the cover of an National Geographic magazine, Earthtrust was the first environmental organization in Kuwait following the 1991 Gulf War with Michael Bailey and Rick Thorpe assessing the environmental damage cause by the burning in Kuwait oil fields of Kuwait shortly after the end of the Gulf War in 1991 while the war contained following requests of the Kuwaiti royal family. 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 which was memorialized in the internationally broadcast Earthtrust documentary Hell on Earth and a five-part Canadian Broadcasting Corporation mini-series. [15]

Food Campaigns

Bailey has also campaigned against food irradiation [16] and was a director of the Conservation Council of Hawai'i.[17]

Other accomplishments

In 2005, he awarded Anuenue Award by the Conservation Council of Hawai'i 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.[18]

In 2007 he was trained at 'The Climate Project' in Nashville, Tennessee by Al Gore and associates in the art of presenting slide show materials relating to the film, 'An Inconvenient Truth' and is an internationally recognised public speaker on environmental issues.

Filmography

  • Oil on Ice [4], International Documentary Association’s 2004 Pare Lorentz Award for Democratic Sensibility and Activist Spirit. A Sierra Club Production
  • ‘Great Adventures’ 1999- 2005. Producer, on-camera Host about mountaineering expeditions to the Antarctica.
  • 'Wild Rescues' for Animal Planet TV Series.
  • 'Effective microorganism' weekly television series

Biography

  • 'The Greenpeace story' by Michael Harold Brown, Prentice-Hall (University of Michigan) Canada, 1989
  • 'Men and Whales' by Richard Ellis. Robert Hale, (University of Virginia) 1992

See also

References

  1. ^ Souls in the Sea: Dolphins, Whales, and Human Destiny by Scott Taylor, Frog Books (February 21, 2003) ISBN-10: 1583940715
  2. ^ Greenpeace: how a group of journalists, ecologists and visionaries changed by Rex Weyler, page 580
  3. ^ 'Save whales, save the planet' by Rod Ohira. Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 6, 1998
  4. ^ Greenpeace Foundation History
  5. ^ Whalesong: The Story of Hawaii and the Whales by MacKinnon Simpson and Robert B. Goodman, Beyond Words Pub. Co., 1990 (University of California)
  6. ^ Balance Seas Report
  7. ^ Mystics and Mechanics, Peacework Magazine
  8. ^ Greenpeace: how a group of journalists, ecologists and visionaries changed by Rex Weyler, page 423
  9. ^ 'Warriors of the rainbow: a chronicle of the Greenpeace movement' by Robert Hunter, Henry Holt & Company, Inc. ISBN 0-03-043741-5 page 404
  10. ^ The Cetacean Nation: A proposal by The Human-Dolphin Foundation, Maui Hawaii, USA Cetacean Nation Proposal
  11. ^ The Scientist: A Metaphysical Autobiography By John Cunningham Lilly, Ronin Publishers, 1996 ISBN: 0914171720
  12. ^ Help Dolphins Survive
  13. ^ Japanese Activists Expose Cetacean Slaughter by Nathan LaBudde, Earth Island Journal Winter 1996-97 A Whale of a Business, PBS Documentary
  14. ^ 'The presence of whales: contemporary writings on the whale' by Frank Stewart. Alaska Northwest Books, 1995 (University of California) ISBN: 0882404644
  15. ^ Canby, Thomas Y. After the Storm. National Geographic 180:2-32 Aug '91.
  16. ^ Is Zapping Food the Answer? by Cliff Rothman. Vegetarian Times, page 12, Dec 1997
  17. ^ Kolea Vol 54 Issue 1 Spring Summer 2004 [1]
  18. ^ Conservationists Honored for Achievements [2]
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