Дэвид Хельварг: Журналист, активист и защитник океана.

American journalist and environmental activist

David Helvarg (born April 10, 1951) is an American journalist and environmental activist. He is the founder and president of the marine conservation lobbying organization Blue Frontier Campaign. He is also a participant in the Seaweed rebellion, an informal marine environmentalist activist movement. He is an author; his writing is often related to marine environmental activism, such as his second book, Blue Frontier. His first book, The War against the Greens, argues that violent organized resistance is being orchestrated against the environmental movement. Helvarg began his career as a freelance journalist, became a war correspondent, then returned to news journalism. He writes about politics, AIDS, and sea life. He has reported from every continent and been widely published. His experience of military conflict, civil conflict and marine biology is the basis of his lobbying.

The Golden Shore "The Golden Shore" (in imprint of St. Martin's) 2013. "Boy, I loved this book. David Helvarg captures, in a really readable way, the quirky and head over heels love we have for our seas." Ted Danson. "Having lived in California for forty four years, I was surprised by how much I learned from David Helvarg's book The Golden Shore. It blew my mind. If you have the same love affair for the beautiful California coast and ocean as I do, this marvelous and compelling book is a must read." Jean Michel Cousteau.

"Saved by the Sea"(an imprint of St. Martin's) 2010. Ocean Explorer Sylvia Earle says, "This book has the power to change the way you think about the world, about yourself, and the future of humankind." Helvarg writes what he knows about the changes in his life and our Ocean world over the last half century.

Robert Kennedy Jr. says, "David Helvarg's terrific new book takes you to the cutting edge of adventure as he rides along with the men and women of the U. S. Coast Guard. This in depth and lively look at the history and changing missions of America's 'Rescue Warriors' should be considered a must read for anyone who loves the water or cares about the safety, security, and stewardship of our nation from sea to shining sea." Bill McKibben writes, "They say that 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help' is the ultimate oxymoron. But as this vivid book makes powerfully clear, in the case of the Coast Guard it's the simple truth. Stow this volume next to the chart case."

Helvarg's book The War against the Greens (1994) describes organized opposition to the environmental movement in the United States. He 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 the administration of U. S. President George H. W. Bush. 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 President 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, 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". War against the Greens is widely cited by activists inside the environmental movement (for example Community Rights Counsel and Land Tenure Center ) and gave rise to numerous rebuttals from Wise Use and its supporters (including Ron Arnold).

Helvarg's second book, Blue Frontier— Dispatches from America's Ocean Wilderness (2001, revised 2006), was named on the Los Angeles Times "Best Books of 2001" republished in 2006. In it Helvarg explores the effects of human activity in general, and of commerce and policy in particular, on marine life. He postulates a trend towards destruction, and suggests that it is possible to reverse this. He then describes 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 (characterized as 'the Seaweed rebellion').

Helvarg is the editor of Blue Frontier Campaign's first major publication: The Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide (2005), a directory for those interested in the protection and restoration of United States coastal lands and waters. Blue Frontier Campaign plans to publish a new edition of the guide every two years. This reference book lists over 2,000 organizations involved in the conservation of the oceans and coastal areas that border the United States. Each entry includes contact information and a brief description of that organization's activities. The directory is divided into four listings: a geographical listings of groups; relevant government agencies; academic marine programs; and marine and coastal parks, and protected areas.

Helvarg 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. The book is a development of a suite of articles that appeared in the October/November 2000 edition of E/The Environmental Magazine. The publishers "aimed to move beyond the scientific debate [ ] to document [ ] the evidence for a changing climate". Each chapter is a first person account of places threatened by global warming. According to Helvarg, warming waters are killing the world's coral and threatening the extinction of Australia's Great Barrier Reef and the reefs around the Florida Keys, while the rising waters threaten to engulf the entire ocean nation of Fiji. In Antarctica he observed scientists measuring the krill population and concludes that the reduction that they found is a consequence of increased water temperatures.

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. His first documentaries drew upon his experiences as a war correspondent in Northern Ireland and Central America. When he moved to San Francisco he was commissioned to produce programs about AIDS awareness for the Hispanic community and these led to other documentaries about Hispanic health. In 1989 Globe TV commissioned a program about Greenpeace to coincide with the launch of the new Rainbow Warrior vessel. This brought Helvarg into contact with green activists, with whose cause he found he sympathized. He would return to green themes in 1991 and 1992 but in the meantime he continued to make series about health, and topical news. From 1992 onwards his energies were focussed on environmental programming with some health commissions. As of 2005 he continues to plan a series of documentaries about ocean stewardship to support the work of the Blue Frontier Campaign.

In 2003 Helvarg founded the marine conservation activist organization Blue Frontier Campaign, of which he became the president. Originally entitled the "Ocean Awareness Project", the Campaign has established a nationwide network of grassroots lobbyists. It is campaigning for an American Oceans Act to protect what the members call "our public seas" and is working to improve local, state, federal and global policies on marine conservation. Helvarg writes articles and books on its behalf. He edited the 2005–2006 Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide and (with Philippe Cousteau and 'Sherman's Lagoon' cartoonist Jim Toomey, the book, '50 Ways to Save the Ocean' and has organized several conferences: in Washington, D. C., in July 2004 and March 2009 and at the National Aquarium in Baltimore in April 2005 and San Francisco in 2005. These conferences brought together activists, academics, officials, and politicians in a series of seminars. The Campaign is based in Washington, D. C., and the San Francisco Bay Area where Helvarg lives.

Helvarg won his first national award in 1988 when he won an Emmy for community service in recognition of his work on AIDS Lifeline, a networked television AIDS awareness campaign. His subsequent awards include 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. In 2007 he won the Herman Melville Award.