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Categories: American journalists | Environmental activists David HelvargDavid Helvarg (born April 10 1951) is an American journalist and environmental activist. Helvarg is a freelance journalist, writing on a range of issues, including politics, AIDS, and sea life. He has been a war correspondent in Northern Ireland and Central America. He has reported from every continent, including Antarctica, and he has been published in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Smithsonian, Popular Science, Sierra , Satya , and The Nation. Helvarg was already established as a respected activist in the marine conservation community when he established the Blue Frontier Campaign to organize a national network of grassroots lobbyists as part of the Seaweed rebellion. Helvarg attracted wider public attention for a syndicated newspaper article debunking comments by conservative Christians on the perceived homosexual tendencies of Spongebob Squarepants by explaining the sexual biology of ocean life [Los Angeles Times January 26 2005 ].
Early lifeHelvarg was born April 10 1951 in New York City, the son of refugees. His mother had come from Nazi Germany and his father escaped civil war in the Ukraine. He grew up on Long Island, which at that time contained swamps and open water in which he played and swam, until the swamps were replaced with housing developments and the water closed to swimming. As a teen he became a civil rights, anti-war activist. He went to Boston University for awhile and graduated with a B.A. in history from Goddard College, Vermont , in 1974. Career and achievementsIn 1973, towards the end of his studies, Helvarg went to Northern Ireland at the height of The Troubles and reported on the conflict for Liberation News Service. After he graduated he published "Ireland Diary; A Day in the Life" in the underground publication San Diego Door . For the next five years, he wrote news articles for San Diego magazines and newspapers. These included fifty "Bottom Line" humor columns for the weekly newspaper San Diego Newsline . From 1979 to 1983, Helvarg covered the U.S. role in the Central American conflicts, beginning as a radio reporter for Associated Press in Nicaragua. Exclusive reports from him included combat coverage of the first town to fall to Sandinista rebels, the first delivery of U.S. gunships to El Salvador, the first visit to Contra camps in Honduras, and the last interview with Sister Ita Ford before her murder. He was arrested by the Salvadoran army and deported from El Salvador in 1983 while reporting on a massacre of civilians. He visited Antarctica in 1999 as a guest of the National Science Foundation. During this trip he published a daily log online for Slate magazine and incorporated his experiences into several articles and books. The War Against the GreensHis book The War Against the Greens (1994) describes organized opposition to the environmental movement in the United States. Helvarg investigated the Wise Use movement, which he characterizes as a network of anti-environmentalist groups. Wise Use aims to facilitate extensive use of natural resources and to privatize the National Park Service. The first edition explored the origins of the organization in 1988 and its covert support by George Bush Senior's administration. Helvarg identified its funding and the multinational corporations and other powerful figures with which it was associated. He catalogued the use of violence that he believed to be organized by the movement against environmental activists, and the ineffective response of law-enforcement agencies. A revised edition published in 2004 extended this to cover the early years of George W. Bush's administration. Wisconsin Stewardship Network News described it as a book that "provides a fascinating and frightening insight into the violent fringe of the anti-conservation Wise Use movement [… and recommends it] in its entirety to readers who want a detailed examination of the origins, development and violent tendencies of Wise Use." The opposing view was put by Jesse Walker who, when reviewing the book for American Enterprise, wrote that it: "offers environmentalists a conspiracy theory to account for the populist backlash against their movement". Helvarg had accused Wise Use of astroturfing; Walker described his book as "a weapon in a propaganda war". Blue Frontier—Saving America's Living SeasHelvarg's second book Blue Frontier—Saving America's Living Seas (2001) was named on the Los Angeles Times "Best Books of 2001" list and an updated edition is due to be published in 2005. In it Helvarg explores the effects of human activity in general, and of commerce and policy in particular, on marine life. He suggested that it was still possible to reverse the trend towards destruction and he described some of the people and groups that are working to preserve or enhance the marine environment. This book prompted Senator John Kerry to observe that "David Helvarg underscores the full measure of the challenges before us: If we hope to explore the Blue Frontier, we must travel cautiously, repairing the damage we have done, understanding before we exploit, and always preserving the natural systems that have created it." It was also one of the catalysts for the establishment of the Blue Frontier Campaign and has become a definitive text for US marine conservation (characterised as 'the Seaweed rebellion'). He is the editor of The Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide (2005) and contributed two chapters to Feeling the Heat—Reports from the Frontlines of Climate Change (2004): Chapter Eight 'Australia, Florida and Fiji: Reefs At Risk' and Chapter 10 'Antarctica: The Ice is Moving' are about threatened ecosystems. Helvarg has produced more than 40 television documentaries broadcast by PBS, The Discovery Channel, and others. His 1986 documentary Sex Inc. was the highest rating show broadcast on the San Francisco PBS station KQED. Other documentaries focused on the military, politics, health and environmental topics. He is a commentator for the National Public Radio station Public Radio International's program Marketplace. He is a licensed private investigator. Helvarg is founder and president of the Blue Frontier Campaign and a member of the board of Reef Relief . Helvarg won his first national award in 1988 when he won an Emmy for community service in recognition of his work on AIDS Lifeline. He has won two National Association for Interpretation awards for Interpretive Communications (in 1989 and 1991), the Nike Earthwrite Award (1997), a National Health Information Award (1999) and a CINE Golden Eagle Award (1999). In 2005, Coastal Living magazine gave him their Leadership Award. He lives in Washington, DC. His recreations include bodysurfing and diving. Quotes
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Categories: American journalists | Environmental activists |
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