Scientific, Technical, and Conservation Advisory Board
Dr. Deborah Brosnan
Founder and President of SEI, Dr. Brosnan is passionate about science and the oceans. She is a scientist on the front lines, as a strong advocate for the use of science in ecological decisions, and as a catalyst for scientists to participate in the global forum. She founded SEI as the conduit for scientists to outreach to all stakeholders and to help find science-based solutions to ecological problems. She believes strongly that scientists must fulfill a new social contract , and assume a greater leadership role in conservation and natural resource issues.
Born in Ireland, she grew up on the shores of the wild Atlantic coast where the tidepools and kelp forests were her playground and where she learned to dive. Always a trailblazer, as a young undergraduate she became the first woman ever to qualify as a scuba diver at the University.
She graduated with an honors degree from the National University of Galway Ireland, and went on to her Ph.D. with Jane Lubchenco and Bruce Menge at OSU. She holds professorships at Lewis and Clark College and Portland State. Author of scientific and popular articles, she is known for her work on the ecology and conservation of marine life.
Dr. Brosnan's own research and conservation range from tropical Caribbean where she directs a major SEI marine science program, to the Pacific shores of North America where she is involved in whale and coastal conservation. Her ground breaking research into human impacts on rocky shores was the backbone of the Oregon Territorial Sea Plan, and has been used to protect coasts worldwide.
Her adventurous spirit and love of science has taken her diving under active volcanoes to study how eruptions affect coral reefs and fisheries, and onto hostile seas in pursuit of greater understanding of the ocean. But she is equally at home bringing her message into the boardroom or the school room.
Eric Cheng
Eric Cheng is the editor and publisher of Wetpixel.com, an online community for underwater photographers, and Wetpixel Quarterly, a print magazine featuring the best in underwater imagery. In both endeavors, Eric strives to provide a forum for photographers to share their work and discuss ocean-related issues, and in turn, educate viewers about the beauty and fragility of the marine ecosystem.
Caught between technical and creative worlds, Eric holds bachelors and masters degrees in computer science from Stanford University, where he also studied classical cello performance and developed a passion for photography.
Eric was a relative latecomer to the marine industry. He became a certified SCUBA diver in 1995 and took a camera underwater for the first time in 2001. Since then, he has become a widely-published, award-winning underwater photographer known worldwide for his passion as an educator. In 2003, Eric was awarded a prestigious Antibes Festival award for his work with Wetpixel.com, the Antibes underwater imaging web site of the year, and in 2005, he won a category in the prestigious Nature's Best Magazine photo competition, which has placed some of his work in the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum.
Through Wetpixel Expeditions, Eric leads regular photography expeditions and workshops around the world.
Tui De Roy
Tui De Roy is an award-winning wildlife photographer, naturalist, and author of many books on wildlife themes around the world. She is also an ardent conservationist who has combined her life’s three passions — Wildness, Photography and Conservation — into a successful career as a world communicator striving to sensitize her audiences to take better care of our natural planet. With this conviction at heart, she is a Founding Fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP), http://www.ilcp.com.
Tui is Belgian by birth, but grew up in the Galapagos Islands, where her parents took her to lead a pioneering lifestyle when she was two years old. She never attended school, being home taught, and is fluent in four languages: English, French, Spanish and German. After more than 35 years in the Galapagos Islands, Tui relocated to the South Island of New Zealand 20 years ago. She runs The Roving Tortoise Nature Photography together with business partner Mark Jones, working freelance under the logo ‘Images of Wildlife and Wilderness from Our Planet's Most Pristine, Uninhabited Regions’.
Published in more than 40 countries, Tui’s first articles appeared in major U.S. nature magazines when she was 19, followed a few years later by her first book, GALAPAGOS: ISLANDS LOST IN TIME (Viking 1980). Many subsequent volumes cover not only the Galapagos Islands, but other natural wonders of the world, notably Antarctica, the Andes Mountains, and New Zealand. Her most recent books include ALBATROSS: THEIR WORLD, THEIR WAYS, an in-depth celebration of the world’s most endangered multi-species bird family, and GALAPAGOS: PRESERVING DARWIN’S LEGACY, which represents a compilation of 50 years of science and conservation work since these islands were declared Ecuador’s first national park. This latter effort won Tui an ‘Honorary Park Warden’ medal from the Galapagos National Park when it decided to publish a Spanish translation of the book as a closure of its 2009 half-century anniversary events.
New Books in progress include PENGUINS: THEIR WORLD, THEIR WAYS, sister volume and sequel to ALBATROSS, whose purpose is to draw attention to the increasingly beleaguered status of these charismatic aquatic birds, and another book on a wildlife-rich region of Kenya, a little-known area of tremendous conservation value. For more on Tui’s life and work, visit http://www.tuideroy.com.
As I grow older my hopes that we can still save the wild integrity of this planet are dwindling, yet Sea Shepherd revives that vision through the uncompromising defense of the inherent rights of pristine nature to exist, and the philosophy that all life on earth must remain our brethren. I particularly admire Capt. Paul Watson's unwavering energy in placing action where words aren't enough, harming no life, but defending so much of it. Untold numbers of living organisms, which are our kin in this complex web called the biosphere have benefited, and are benefiting, from that action.
Dave Foreman
Dave Foreman is a radical American environmentalist. He is one of the founders of Earth First!, a group noted for consisting of ecological saboteurs, or ecoteurs. To defend the environment, members of this group practice various destructive acts against both humans and machinery.
Foreman was born in 1947, the son of a United States Air Force employee. As a young man, he was the chair of Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative organization; in the 1970s, he worked for the Wilderness Society.
Eventually, Foreman developed the idea that, while they are often well-meaning, government agencies, as well moderate private organizations, could not and would not stand up to the powerful forces attempting to destroying America's environment.
Inspired by Edward Abbey's book, The Monkey Wrench Gang, Foreman set about to from a group of radical environmentalists to engage in "monkey-wrenching," including such acts as "spiking" trees so that they could not be cut down, "munching" logging roads by the use of nails, toppling high-voltage power lines, as well as other subversive practices that resulted in protecting the environment.
Thus Earth First! was born -- along with its motto: "No compromise in defense of Mother Earth." This very unconventional organization operates without rules or officers. As Foreman intended, it is simply a group of people who are passionate about the environment; along with ecotage, members use self-deprecating humor to mantain sanity and oppose fanaticism.
Dr. Birute Galdikas
Biruté Galdikas was born in London, Germany, on May 10, 1946, while her parents were en route from Lithuania to Canada. She grew up in Toronto, Canada.
When Biruté was 12 years old she loved to go into the wilder sections of High Park in Toronto. She would spend hours like this, quietly and secretly observing the wild animals in the park.
When she went to university, she combined her love of nature with her curiosity about the great apes and studied psychology and anthropology.
At 22, while she was working on her masters degree in anthropology at the University of California in Los Angeles, Biruté met Dr. Louis Leakey, who is famous for discovering fossils of early humans in Africa. Leakey and the National Geographic Society helped her to set up a research camp in Borneo to study orangutans.
Biruté arrived in Borneo with her husband, Rod Brindamour, in 1971. They had to live in primitive conditions. Within a few years, she gave birth to a son, Binty, who was raised among the orangutans and dubbed "the child of the rain forest". Biruté had to make difficult choices in the years that followed. She made the agonizing decision to remain in the rain forest when her marriage ended. Her son Binti returned to Canada with her ex-husband. Later she remarried and had two more children.
From March 1996 through the end of March 1998 under a special decree, Biruté served as a senior advisor to the Minister of Forestry on orangutan issues. In June 1997 she won the prestigious "Kalpataru" award, the highest award given by the Republic of Indonesia for outstanding environmental leadership and activity. Biruté Galdikas was the first person of non-Indonesian birth and one of the first women to be so recognized by the Indonesian government.
Biruté is uncompromising in her defense of wild orangutans and the preservation of tropical rain forests, which constitute the orangutan species' only natural habitat. She has always had grassroots support and the continued support of the Indonesian government, even in transition, in her pioneering research and effort to conserve and protect orangutans and rain forests as well as the support from numerous conservation groups around the world. Many of these organizations have honored Biruté with environmental awards.
Founder: Orangutan Foundation International
Randall H. Hayes
Hayes, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, founded RAN in 1985 and, with bold direct action campaigns, built it into the primary American advocate not only for tropical rainforests, but also for its temperate cousins in places like the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia and Alaska. In its first year, RAN took on no less a target than the World Bank, fighting to reform its environmentally destructive loan practices.
When polite meetings wouldn't work, RAN staged civil disobedience actions, CEO confrontations and boycotts. San Franciscans soon got used to the sight of Hayes in handcuffs. The boycott list rapidly expanded, to include Burger King, Scott Paper, Conoco and Texaco.
"The environmental movement is full of reasonable people," says Hayes, making it clear that he is not one of them. Direct action works, he says, pointing to $2 billion in rainforest contracts in the Amazon and Indonesia that have been stopped through RAN's work.
After a decade of effective pressure on the lumber lobby, however, RAN is broadening its approach with a new campaign aimed at the Big Three corporate logging companies-Mitsubishi, MacMillan-Bloedel and Georgia-Pacific. Mitsubishi, hasn't yet mended its ways, but it was concerned enough about the boycott to arrange a meeting between Hayes and its CEO, Minouri Makihara.
RAN has also developed a practical, four-page 500-Year Plan that outlines how, over time, the world could, by international agreement, protect all remaining primary forests (providing economic compensation to the host countries), allow secondary forests to mature, and restrict sustainable logging to special commercial zones.
The plan encourages alternative fiber development, and advocates a reduction in wood and paper use by 7.5 percent a year. Hayes says the plan "gets us closer and closer to the root causes of the social and ecological crises at the end of the industrial era."
Dr. Herbert Henrich
Dr. Herbert A.E. Henrich is a German economist engaged in the field of agro-inustrial development of eastern Africa, and much involved in animal welfare issues there.
He is acting as Sea Shepherd's representative in the effort to establish the first seal rescue and care center in South Africa.
Dr. Sidney Holt
I am an English marine biologist, born in 1926, educated at the University of Reading, England and now resident in Umbria, Italy. I was the co-author with R. J. H. Beverton of a book "On the Dynamics of Exploited Fish Populations" first published in 1957 and which has since gone to three more editions, and has been described by my peers as”…the most widely cited fisheries book ever published. . . a great work (that) created a solid foundation for one of the two major global visions of the science of fisheries”. This book was the genesis of the modern age-structured approach to the optimal management of fishery resources. Beverton and Holt will continue to be a source of inspiration and insight for many years to come." I am, of course, proud of that contribution to the Theory of Fishing. But in some ways more satisfied with my subsequent 25 years employed in United Nations organisations, having been appointed at various times Director of the Fisheries Resources and Operations Division of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO, in Rome), Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) and Director of UNESCO's Marine Sciences Division in Paris.
I have held professorial chairs at the Universities of California Santa Cruz, of Rhode Island and of Malta, and a Senior Overseas Fellowship at St John's College, Cambridge. In Malta I served as UN Advisor on Mediterranean Marine Affairs and was one of the founders and the first Director of the International Ocean Institute (IOI) there. Since my retirement from the United Nations in 1979 I have devoted my energies mainly to the conservation and protection of the Great Whales, serving on the International Whaling Commission's (IWC) Committee of Three scientists 1960-1985, on the delegation of the Republic of Seychelles to the IWC 1979-1987, as adviser to the Government of France 1992-4 and to the Delegations of Italy and Chile to the IWC, and also as Science Adviser to the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) since 1980.
I participated in various capacities for more than thirty years in the Scientific Committee of the IWC, as well as in the Commission itself, from 1959 to 2002. I have been honoured with the Gold Medal of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Royal Netherlands Golden Ark, the Global 500 Award of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and The Blue Planet Award of IFAW, all for contributions to the protection of marine mammals, to animal welfare and to fisheries science.
Why I support SSCS on the whaling issue.
Although I have long had, and continue to have, informal and sometime formal advisory relations with several NGOs that consistently and persistently oppose commercial whaling, I am looking to SSCS for two special reasons:
1. SSCS is not afraid to speak out against cruelty to, and mistreatment of, sentient non-human beings, and
2. SSCS more than any others is clear about the fact that commercial whaling, especially that by Japan in the guise of scientific research, is driven solely by business/financial considerations and is best opposed through disrupting those imperatives, both on the supply and the demand sides.
I am also impressed by the clarity and unambiguity with which Paul Watson expresses his views and defines the SSCS strategy. And I applaud the dedication and bravery of those who crew the SSCS ships. Lastly, I tend always to support those who try to persuade or even force Governments and other "Authorities" to honour the commitments they have made by being party to international agreements. rather than merely by paying lip-service to them.
Dr. Jennifer Hopper
Dr. Hopper began her undergraduate studies by specializing in Zoology and Wildlife Biology and received her B.Sc. from the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada in 1991. She continued her education and received her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree in 1999. While attending university, Dr. Hopper was deeply involved with environmental enrichment programs for laboratory animals, specifically research dogs, and was honoured with the Roy S Moore Award for excellence in laboratory animal care and welfare. She remains steadfast in her belief that animal research should not be condoned but recognizes that it does continue and more effort is needed to improve the quality of research animal's lives.
Upon graduation Dr. Hopper worked at the London Ontario Veterinary Emergency Clinic and presently sits on their Board of Directors. She purchased a small animal hospital in 2001 where she is currently a single practitioner. She was the London Humane Society Board veterinarian for 2 years and currently sits on the London Veterinary Association Board. Dr. Hopper is heavily involved with a feral cat spay/neuter program and works with a local animal rescue group (Animal Outreach) on a daily basis.
Dr. Hopper's passion for animals has spanned the globe with many traveling excursions including a 3 month trip to Kenya and Tanzania. Back in London, Ontario she shares her home and heart with 5 dogs, numerous cats, 4 rabbits, 2 cockatiels, 3 rats and an elderly horse with attitude.
Captain Jet Johnson
Al "Jet" Johnson was the founder of Greenpeace USA in 1975. Al joined Captain Paul Watson's Greenpeace seal campaign in 1975 and was Paul's deputy leader for the Greenpeace seal expeditions of 1976 and 1977.
Jet was one of Greenpeace's most colourful activists. Trained as a fighter pilot for the Royal Canadian Airforce, he later worked as a DC-10 Captain for American Airlines. Despite his status as a professional airline pilot, Jet courageously defended wildlife at both the risk to his life and his job security -- dropping parachutists into nuclear power plants, flying recon for Greenpeace seal and whale campaigns, and organizing the very first Greenpeace national office in San Francisco.
Jet was the first to support Captain Paul Watson when he left Greenpeace and founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, both financially and actively. Captain Johnson joined Captain Watson in 1978 in an investigation of elephant poaching in East Africa, running dangerously close to an encounter with Ugandan president Idi Amin and ducking poacher's bullets in Kenya.
Jet Johnson sailed on the first Sea Shepherd and was arrested on the Sea Shepherd II in 1983 for protecting baby harp seals. Over the years he has stood side by side with Captain Watson defending seals, whales, dolphins, and elephants.
Whenever Sea Shepherd has needed a pilot, Jet Johnson has been ready. In 1982, Captain Johnson flew Paul Watson and Carroll Vogel on a successful paint-bombing mission of a Soviet spy vessel off Washington State. The flight was a campaign against illegal Russian whaling activities.
Although retired from American Airlines, Jet still is active with Sea Shepherd and joined the crew to deliver the Ocean Warrior from Europe to North America.
Jet Johnson is without a doubt the world's foremost conservationist pilot. In addition to his legendary exploits with Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd, Jet flew Chief Paiukan's plane for the Kaiyapo nation in the rainforests of Brazil in 1990.
Jet Johnson is the father of three girls and the grandfather of one boy. He lives in British Columbia and is one of the most respected figures in the Canadian conservationist community.
Dr. Louise Leakey
Louise Leakey, daughter of world-famous paleoanthropologists Richard and Meave Leakey and granddaughter of Louis and Mary Leakey, was born in Kenya. She represents the third generation of one of the world's most renowned scientific family dynasties.
Accompanying her famous father, Louise has spent much of her life in the Kenyan wilderness on both paleontology and wildlife expeditions, and was witness to the discovery of some of the most important human fossil finds as well as the critical protection of African wildlife.
She completed her Bachelor of Science degree in geology and biology at the University of Bristol, and her Ph.D. at University College London in paleoecology of African mammals. Louise upholds the Leakey family legacy in the search for human origins through continuing research with the Koobi Fora Research Project in the Turkana Basin of northern Kenya. In appreciation of her African field explorations on human origins, The National Geographic Society has made Louise an "Explorer-in Residence."
Currently, Louise is developing a long-term research initiative at Koobi Fora, East Turkana, where her concern for the welfare of the surrounding peoples has led her to generate increased funding for the local school and medical center. Among her other pursuits, Louise occasionally works as a guide for palaeontological excursions and horse riding safaris in Kenya. She manages the Leakey family vineyard, and is a Kenyan bush pilot. An avid photographer, she recently published some of her photos in the book Africa's Children as part of a charitable project for education. Louise lives in Kenya with her two young daughters and her husband, Emmanuel de Merode, who is the Chief Executive of Wildlife Direct, the African Conservation Fund.
Dr. Godfrey Merlen
Biography to come
Grant Pereira
Grant has been involved in conservation work for more than 30 years, and lives by the philosophy of "getting his feet wet and hands dirty." In Singapore, he has an ongoing program to replant mangroves at coastal shores to encourage the return of native fauna and flora.
Grant has been very active in the anti-sharkfin campaign, heading up a marketing and educational campaign to stop the brutal slaughter of sharks for their fins. He has created, marketed and widely distributed postcards and posters which illustrate the devastation of the shark-finning practice, the dolphin slaughter in Japan and captive dolphin shows in Asia.
In 2000, Grant was awarded the Greenleaf Award, which is the highest environmental award given to an individual in Singapore.
Presently, Grant is the head of the Green Volunteers Network of the Singapore Environment Council, which is the most active environmental organization in Singapore.
Dr. Bonny Schumaker
A lifelong naturalist and forest resident, who kind of fell into science after an emotional young adulthood playing music and studying philosophy and embracing idealistic lifestyles. Studied physics and received a Ph.D. from Caltech in theoretical astrophysics and quantum optics, having survived that only by running off to the Sierra Nevada or the Cascades every other week or so to challenge the walls and get lost in the trees. Having believed for years that I should appreciate having learned “how to think,” as physicists pride themselves for, I more recently came to see the the power that comes from following one's heart, and have since become in avocation that wildlife biologist that I never became in vocation. As nature and wildlife have been my heart from the start, they have become now the real core of my energies and existence, and I find that no matter what my schedule, when it is for them, my inner smile is tireless.
Statement of support for SS: Protection and preservation of Earth's oceans and ocean ecosystems has become an urgent priority, yet countries and cultures continue to destroy and wipe out species after species, the rest of the world apparently unaware or unconcerned. It should have been enough to simply note this fact and remind peoples everywhere that we are guests on this planet, and that a reverence for nature and all life is the only appropriate basis for choosing right from wrong, sustainable from destructive. But it has not been enough; it still is not enough. So there are a few groups like Sea Shepherd who see that political correctness is defeat when it comes to matters like protecting critical ecosystems, since the ecosystems are not respected by their enemies. It seems necessary that we take on their enemies, then, to the degree and for as long as it takes to protect and preserve the ecosystems. It is so close to being too late, that I find it hard to disagree with any tactic thus far used by Sea Shepherd. I have seen firsthand how the action of the Sea Shepherds are described falsely and are unfairly maligned by those they would stop, and the media and the governments have failed to respect the facts. That doesn't have to happen very many times before one decides to become extreme in one's defense of the innocent.
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