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NEW
DELHI: The weekly Doordarshan programme Earth Matters,
produced and directed by renowned wildlife and conservationist
filmmaker Mike Pandey, has been awarded the first "Golden
Giraffe for conservation" at the International Wildlife
Film Festival in Albert, France, for spreading awareness about
conservation through the visual media.
The programme has already led to the formation of about 140
Earth Matters Clubs being set up all over the country with
people actively undertaking programmes like planting trees
or ensuring water conservation. Even blogs have been created
to exchange information about programmes that can be undertaken.
Pandey
is the first filmmaker to receive the world's top environmental
awards – the Green Oscars – thrice.
 Speaking
at the Presentation ceremony recently, Jean Pierre Hue who
is Executive Director of the 18th Festival International du
Film Animalier, said only three names had been shortlisted
of the many received, but Pandey was selected as his work
and the difference it had made put him head and shoulders
above the others. He noted that he was aware of the tremendous
outreach of India's most popular wildlife and environmental
conservation programme on television, 'Earth Matters'. It
had taken information to places where none existed before...
benefiting millions across the country and especially neighbouring
countries and parts of the world.
Keanan Smart, President of the Jury and head of National Geographic's
Natural History Unit, said: "I cannot think of any other
name in the world whose work has achieved so much, not only
in India, but internationally."
In
his acceptance speech, Pandey said: 'I believe that conservation
cannot happen from just one corner of the world but has to
be a global effort. I am glad Earth Matters has shown the
way and taken a lead in conservation and sharing value based
information films which have been recognized by the world
community. I hope that this will further the cause of conservation.
I thank my national broadcaster Doordarshan for supporting
the only wildlife and environmental series in India and which
has been running for nearly nine years. The National public
broadcaster has been successful in its mandate in carrying
information and education where it is urgently needed - rural
India and the youth across the country."
In an interview, Pandey told indiantelevision.com that around
300 e-mails and almost 4000 letters are received every week
by the programme, telecast at 11 am on Sunday mornings on
DD One and repeated several times in the week.
He said the next few episodes of the programme will concentrate
on the Siddhis, a wandering tribe that owes its origins to
Africa but whose members now leave peacefully among lions
in areas in Karnataka and Gujarat.
Pandey said he had devoted six episodes earlier to the issue
gripping environmentalists all over the world: global warming.
The episodes dealt with Global warming and greenhouse gases,
agriculture, rising seas, rivers, public health and temperature
trauma respectively.
Back home earlier this year, Pandey had received the highest
and most prestigious wildlife honour in the country when he
received the President’s ‘Rajiv Gandhi Wildlife
and Environmental Conservation Award’ for his path-breaking
work.
In 1994, Wildscreen Panda Award, also known as the Green Oscar,
was given to him for his film The Last Migration - Wild Elephant
Capture in Sarguja.
In
2000, his film Shores of Silence - Whale Sharks in India,
won the Green Oscar for the second time. The film also led
to legislation and the ban on the killing of whale sharks
on Indian shores and global ban at CITES in November 2003.
In October 2004, he won the Green Oscar for the Third time
for his film Vanishing Giants – a story of his passion
and involvement with elephants. This film also led to the
ban of cruel and outdated techniques of elephant capture in
India and a change in the concerned law.
Pandey is also the first filmmaker to be awarded the prestigious
United Nations Vatavaran International Award for Outstanding
Achievement in Global Conservation, the Prithvi Ratan or 'Son
of the Earth' at the Vatavaran Film Festival in November 2003,
for his outstanding contribution towards generating awareness
which led to the conservation of a global heritage - the Whale
Shark.
Under the banner of Riverbank Studios he has created some
of India's most popular programmes like Earth Matters and
Khullam Khulla and has also directed innumerable other films
that have won countless awards - both national and International.
In 2004 Pandey brought honour to the country with his Green
Oscar nomination for ‘The Filmmaker for Conservation’
Award - one of the highest awards at the Wildscreen Film Festival
– bringing India at par with the world’s top makers
of films on natural history, wildlife and environment.
At a special ceremony to commemorate 100 years’ history
of wildlife filmmaking at Wildscreen in 2006, Pandey was the
only Asian to figure among six global giants like Sir David
Attenborough and Mike Salisbury for wildlife film production
over the last 100 years.
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