New Delhi, Oct 1 (IANS) Well-known wildlife conservationist Mike Pandey has been named an ‘Environmental Hero’ by Time magazine as part of its Heroes of the Environment 2009.
In its latest issue, Oct 5, the magazine has named him environmental hero under the head Leaders and Visionaries 2009. It writes: “Al Gore wasn’t the first person to use a movie to help save the world. In India, efforts to protect everything from whale sharks to elephants, vultures to medicinal plants owe a debt to prolific wildlife-documentary maker Mike H. Pandey.”
It says Pandey, 60, “has waged a three-decade war to defend India’s wildlife and environment, rousing the apathetic and spurring governments, communities and individuals to act. His weapon of choice: film”.
His 1994 film “The Last Migration” helped slow the decline in India’s elephant numbers. The film and its sequel “Vanishing Giants” (2004), triggered a national debate and led the government to ban the more brutal traditional methods of elephant capture, which often result in the animal’s death, Time writes.
Pandey was born to Indian parents in Kenya and grew up right next to the Nairobi National Park “where elephants would raid my mother’s kitchen garden and lions’ calls would wake us at night”, he is quoted as saying. He studied filmmaking in the US and Britain. He settled in Delhi and founded Riverbank Studios in 1973 to make educational and environmental documentaries.
“Success finally came when ‘The Last Migration’ was screened at the Wildscreen Festival in Bristol, England – the biggest wildlife and environmental film festival in the world – and won a prestigious Panda award. More films and awards followed. Pandey’s most enduring success, though, is the weekly half-hour series ‘Earth Matters’, which has run on state television for 11 years, and has helped spur the emergence of grassroots conservation groups around India.”
“My effort has been to show what each of us can do,” it quotes Pandey as saying. “The earth matters to all of us. Don’t just drive to work, look around you, see the birds and trees, and if there’s something going wrong, set it right.”
Another Indian named in its list of Leaders & Visionaries for the Environment 2009 is Sulabh founder Bindeshwar Pathak under the head Scientists & Innovators.