0-2 Selected media
on Anthony Marr and his work
1995-12-18
Chinatown News
by Wanda Chow
[Chinese
environmentalist campaigning to change centuries-old tradition]
… Perhaps because Anthony
Marr is a Chinese person willing to speak out against a Chinese tradition… he
has had plenty of media attention. The
public’s reaction? One Maple Grove
school teacher recently said, “For years I’ve been waiting for someone like him
to step forward.”
1996-01-08-1 Times Colonist,
Victoria by Malcolm Curtis
[Tiger, tiger, put it right]
… “If major
endangered species of the world – bear, elephant, tiger, rhino – go extinct as
a result of Chinese demand for their body parts, I would consider it a capital
crime against nature, and the Chinese would be forever convicted,” Marr said in
an interview…"
1996-01-21-7
The Vancouver Courier
by Kerry Gold
[Chinese activist fearless]
… “My response is,
I’ve got to be accountable first and foremost to myself, and I’m not going to
compromise myself (by worrying) about offending certain people,” said Anthony
Marr…
1996-07-05-5 The
Prince George Citizen by Gordon
Hoekstra
[Fur flies at meeting to ban bear hunts]
It was barely civil
and sometimes downright ugly. In the
end, it took Anthony Marr of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee close to
two hours to deliver a plea for help to ban bear hunting in BC. He was interrupted, shouted down, and
generally abused by hunters in an audience of more than 100 that spilled out of
the conference room at the Civic Centre Thursday evening… Marr had barely begun… before he was
attacked…
1996-07-09-2 The
Daily News, Kamloops, BC by
Michelle Young
[Activist pleads for bear-hunt ban]
With calm and
respect, Anthony Marr faced rapid-fire questioning from hunters and threw back
a plea for them to stop hunting bears…
1996-08-02-5
The Vancouver
Sun
by Larry Pynn
[Activist angers hunters with campaign to outlaw bear hunt
through referendum]
Anthony Marr is on
almost every hunter’s hit list for his efforts to get bear hunting banned in
BC… Marr has just completed a seven-week-tour of more than 50 BC communities…
It hasn’t been easy for Marr, who has been dogged by hunters equally determined
to kill his campaign before it gets off the ground… “I know some gung fu, but I
can take on only one unarmed hunter at a time,” he says with a smile…
“Deep down inside,
it's a moral issue,” says Marr...
“It's immoral to
kill for entertainment. And abominable that adult teach their children to
kill for fun.”...
The BC Wildlife
Federation (BC’s pre-eminent hunters’ group) has set aside $40,000 so far to
counter the environmentalists. The hunter lobby will place ads, and
attempt to shadow petition canvassers as they make their way door to door...
Realizing that
hunters would probably lose a referendum on bear hunting, the Federation knows
it must stop the environmentalists now. The hunters will concentrate
their efforts in pro-hunting interior communities and leave the urban areas
alone.
The hunters' message
is that poaching is not out of control, that bear populations can support
hunting and that hunting is a valid way for wildlife officials to manage
populations.
“Even if all the
logic is on our side, it is hard to counter emotion,” Federation President John
Holdstock) said.
Saying that hunters
legally kill 4,000 Black bears and 350 Grizzlies a year in BC, Marr argues that
the hunting ban will help protect BC bears from inevitable onslaught of
poaching to meet the rising Asian herbal-medicine trade in gall bladders.
To that end, Marr is
waging a simultaneous campaign to educate the Chinese community.
“We have a moral
obligation to lead the world,” he said….
Marr... was born in
China in 1944 and fled to Hong Kong with his family during the Communist
revolution in 1949. He moved to Canada in 1965, first to Winnipeg and
then to Vancouver, eventually receiving his bachelor of science degree from the
University of BC.
He... worked as a
geophysicist in the northern wilderness for mineral exploration companies -
'that's when I became bonded with nature' - before joining WCWC as a campaigner
last year...
1996-08
Sing Tao Weekend Magazine (Chinese), global
[When the bear hunt season opens, whose call will be the loudest?]
… WCWC campaign
director Anthony Marr spent June and July visiting over 50 cities and towns to
publicize the initiative… He was
interviewed by newspapers more than 100 times, and by TV and radio more than a
dozen times. Along his route, he also
signed up more than 1,500 volunteers…
1996-09 The
Common Ground, Vancouver,
BC by
Sue Fox, WCWC
[BET’R vote yes in Bear Referendum]
… “…BC has the
potential to become the ecotourism capital of the world, if we start conserving
our natural resources right now,” Anthony said… Anthony’s road tour drew numerous highly dedicated volunteers and
widespread media support as well as audiences of hostile hunters…
1996-08-01week
The Georgia Straight, Vancouver, BC
by Charlie Smith
[Hunters target Marr]
During a recent
provincewide tour, WCWC wildlife campaigner Anthony Marr discovered how
difficult it would be to achieve a ban on bear hunting… In public meetings to promote holding a vote
on the issue, he was usually hounded by dozens of angry hunters who tried to
intimidate him. “In Port Alberni, 60 of them showed up, and there were only
five environmentalists,” Marr said.
“They are organized and they are hostile, and when they show up, it’s 10
to one – ten of them to one of us.”…
Marr will speak about this issue on Thursday (August 8) at the H.R.
MacMillan Planetarium at 7:30 p.m.- and he expects to see angry hunters in the
audience. “I’m beginning to enjoy confronting them,” he chuckled.
1996-08-17-6
The Vancouver Sun, [Westcoast
People]
by Mia Stainsby
[Caught at cultural crossroads -
Chinese-Canadian environmentalist upsets some Asians and
Caucasians alike as he fights against the use of animal parts as Chinese
medicines, among other traditions]
Anthony Marr, the
man who's threatening to take all the fun out of bear hunting... is in a show
down with hunters, who aren't taking too kindly to his quest... The winding
path that brought him to this juncture appeared before him unexpectedly.
In truth, Marr would
rather be with his “baby”, a book over 800 pages long, called [OMNI-SCIENCE - A
New Omniscientific Cosmology], which he began writing in 1978.
So, what is he doing
in conflict over bear hunting, after spending decades writing about cosmic
harmony? On a recent tour of 40 BC interior communities, he faced
roomsful of angry hunters and has a fistful of press clippings about the
dust-ups. On the other hand, he also found supporters in these communities.
Being Chinese-Canadian has almost everything
to do with Marr's environmental activism. The more he heard about the
Chinese use of animal parts, especially parts from animals on the
endangered species list, the more he felt compelled to speak up.
“Something's got to
be done about this,” he said to his (mostly Caucasian) friends. “And I
think a Chinese person should do it. And I think you're looking at
him.” That was three and a half years ago...
On the subject of
hunting… in 1966, he joined in a “yahoo” killing during his working stint in
the bush as a geologist's helper. He remembers the date because the
incident was etched in his mind...
At camp, one of the
men's wives had flown in. She saw the dead mountain goat and broke down
and cried, “Several minutes ago, this was a majestic creature. See what
you've done!'
It was a turning
point for Marr, and the beginning of a new respect for wildlife. “I was
deeply moved by her. I've never fired my gun since.”...
“I was going to finish
my book last year, but all of a sudden my time was usurped. Saving
endangered species. It was more urgent, but the book, whenever it
comes out, will remain the central core of my achievement.”
His book, he says,
is an integration of all the sciences and -ologies into a single body, which he
calls Omni-Science. “I look at nature from all angles at once, which
gives forth a new philosophical system where we human beings find a place...”
Love may have
something to do with Marr's critical take on Chinese culture. “My first
true love was a Chinese woman, but her family forced her to break up with me or
suffer the pain of being disowned,” he recalls. “That is a fate worse
than death for a Chinese girl, and so she acquiesced. Her parents felt
our two families' social positions didn't match. That was in 1967, and I
became very disenchanted with the Chinese culture because of it. I've
never dated a Chinese woman since,” he said.
The Chinese reaction
to Marr is mixed. At schools, where he gives talks on the Asian use of
animals, he gets enthusiastic support from students (many of whom being of
Chinese descent).
… ‘When I’m on
Chinese radio talk shows, two of the most common questions are: “Why are you
trying to blacken the Chinese reputation?" and "What is more
important, humans or animals?”
“My answer is that,
on the contrary, I'm trying to save the Chinese reputation from eternal
damnation, because if we carry on the way we have and drive some of the species
to extinction, then our reputation will be forever mud, and we can never regain
respect in the eyes of the world. I tell them that I'm working for human
beings too. What kind of world are we passing on to our kids?”...
1996-10-12-6 The
News, Parksville, BC by Bruce
Whitehead
[Bear Crusader takes man on the speaking tour from hell]
No matter how
open-minded you are, you likely wouldn’t pick mild-mannered Anthony Marr out to
be an environmental activist - let alone one that some have called ‘the most
hated man in BC’. But the
Chinese-Canadian physicist has almost single-handedly managed to fire up
emotions in every corner of the province…
1996-11-19-2
The Globe and Mail,
national by
Gordon Gibson
[The bears and the ballot]
… On December 8 in
BC, if the WCWC has its way, bears will have a date with democracy… Its
gladiator in this fight is Anthony Marr, a Chinese-Canadian born in China… Mr.
Marr feels a special ethnic responsibility and status in this crusade, which he
has been pursuing with extraordinary intensity, barnstorming the province…
1996-12-17
Positive Action News, Victoria,
BC by
Nicholas Ford
[The fight to help bears through the tool of law]
… Anthony Marr is
October’s hero… He has bravely faced up to repeated intimidation from hunters
and debates them on lecture tours. He is a man with a vision… (His)
activism in BC on bears is based on excellent foresight…
1996-12-28
The Vancouver Sun, [West Coast People]
[1996’s Top 10 - The leaders who made a difference]
… Anthony Marr…has
been in a showdown with bear hunters, who aren’t taking kindly to his quest…
1996-12
Sing Tao Daily News (Chinese), global
[3 Chinese-Canadian eco-warriors]
… Anthony Marr’s
prime motive is to ensure a healthy and beautiful world for our children… He
plans to go straight into the tigers’ homelands - India, China… to save them
where they live…
1997-03 New
Internationalist
magazine by
Ross Crockford
[Bad Medicine -
Ross Crockford tells the story of a man who has stepped on toes
from Campbell River to Hong Kong to stop a pernicious trade…]
Anthony Marr knows
what it feels like to be endangered. Last summer the Vancouver
environmentalist was touring small towns in British Columbia... Often the
reception he got was downright hostile. Many people in the countryside
claimed he was trying to destroy their livelihood and their heritage...
Now, Marr is taking
his campaign around the world... He knows there will be some risk; organized
crime is directly involved in the endangered species trade... But after
tangling with British Columbia's hunters, he should be ready.
1997-04-24- The
Georgia Straight magazine, Vancouver,
BC by Shawn Blore
[Bloody Superstition –
Anthony Marr wants to stop the medicinal use of tiger products
before it destroys a magnificent species]
Pessimist give the
world's tigers 5 years. Realists, 10.
They're the kind of
numbers that make you want to quietly despair, to give up, to flip the channel
and think about something more pleasant. Melrose Place maybe, or
Roseanne. Marr, however, whether from a sense of conceit, ignorance, or a
staggering sense of confidence, saw nothing impossible in the task of bringing
the tiger back from the brink...
... To highlight the
extent of Vancouver's tiger trade, Marr kicked off a media blitz in January
1996. Local journalists were invited on an endangered species tour
through Chinatown's apothecaries. The tour began in the low-ceilinged
warren that serves as WCWC's headquarters. Marr upended his leather
briefcase, spilling out 15-20 boxes of Chinese patent medicines: tiger plasters,
tiger pills, tiger-based medicaments for rheumatism, tired blood, soft bones,
and sexual impotence, all of them purchased in shops in Vancouver's
Chinatown. Pointing to the ingredients lists on the diverse packages,
Marr picked out the symbols, words, and phrases that in Latin, English and
Chinese spelled out “tiger bone”.
The next part of the
tour was a trip along Pender, Main and Keefer Streets, with Marr indicating
here and there the shops and apothecaries dealing in tiger medicinals and inviting journalists
to go in and check the shelves for themselves. Six shops out of 10
stocked a variety of boxes, cartons and bottles labeled with some variation of
the word Os Tigris - tiger bone.
The media loved
it. Marr made it on to TV news both locally and nationally, and stories
appeared in city magazines and community papers. He used his pulpit to
heap scorn upon Canadian wildlife regulations. “Canada's wildlife laws
could use an aphrodisiac,' Marr said, “because right now, they're totally impotent.”
He was equally hard-hitting in his presentations to Chinese community groups
and at Eastside Vancouver high schools. Traditional Chinese medicine's
use of parts of animals like tigers and rhinos, Marr said, and the cutting
of many urban trees for that matter, were based on nothing but pure
superstition. That superstition was destroying a magnificent
species. The fact that the practice was tolerated by the Chinese-Canadian
community only blackened their reputation in mainstream Canadian society.
Environmentalists
heaved a sigh of relief. Here was someone tackling a problem they had
long known about but dared not touch. “It's great that it's a Chinese
person doing the work he's doing.” said Nathalie Chalifour, World Wildlife Fund
Canada's tiger expert, “because when it's a person like me doing it, well, I'm
white; I'm more likely to be accused to being racist, which is really
unfortunate, but it does happen.”
Vancouver's Chinese
media were as quick to jump on the story as their English counterparts.
Marr's campaign was covered by both the Ming Pao and the Sing Tao newspapers,
and he appeared on several Chinese language radio programs. According to
Ming Pao columnist and CJVB radio host Gabriel Yiu, the Chinese community's
reaction to Marr's campaign was mixed. His straight talk on superstition
did offend some, but there was also those who took pride in the fact that a
Chinese Canadian was working on environmental concerns. “For a long
period of time when people are talking about monster homes, tree cutting,
killing wild animals for some of their body parts,” Yiu said, “people do have
the impression that the Chinese community is the cause of that. I think
the work Anthony did set a very good example that we do have people in the Chinese
community who are concerned about these issues.”...
According to
Vancouver city councilor Don Lee, Marr's effectiveness was limited... “I don't
know Anthony Marr that well. The Chinese Community doesn't know him well
at all,” Lee said. “We don't know where he comes from. We don't
know why he's doing all this.” As it turns out, those are two of the most
interesting questions that could be asked about Anthony Marr.
Born in February
1944, in southern China, Anthony Seeu-Sung Marr fled to Hong Kong along with
the rest of his family shortly after the Communist revolution. Family
legend has Marr's father burning the deeds of the family's extensive
land-holdings for a moment's warmth during the first refugee winter...
(In 1965), Marr came
to Canada to study science at the University of Manitoba... At the same time,
his relationship with a Hong Kong girl fell to bits when she dropped him on
orders from her parents. Marr has never forgiven Chinese culture for the
snub. “As a result of that incident, I have never dated a Chinese girl
again,” Marr said. It's a decision that isolated him somewhat from the
Chinese community, but, according to Marr, it also allowed him to integrate
more fully into Canadian society than other Chinese immigrants of his
generation.
In 1966, Marr
switched over to the physics department of the University of British
Columbia. His summers he spent in the bush in northern Manitoba and
British Columbia, working as a geologist's assistant. It was work that
can only be idealized by someone who has never done it. Marr said, “The
student is the geologist's personal servant - more like slave, considering the
pay, which was only $280 per month. I made and carried his lunch, and
every few feet, the geologist would pick up a rock sample about twice the
size of my fist and drop it into my knapsack. I had to carry that
ever-heavier thing all day, wading into swamps that would sometimes come up to
my chest or higher. Your shirt would be black with flies and mosquitoes.
There could be a bear behind every tree. It was brutal, but also
absolutely beautiful. And this was how I bonded with nature.”
After he graduated
with a B.Sc. in 1970, Marr took a job as a live-in house-father for emotionally
disturbed kids, then a career in real estate. He said he had a heavy
student loan to pay off. One senses he also had a need to gain acceptance
among the Vancouver business community. “I made rookie of the year, then
Gold Club, Diamond Club, all that,” Marr said. “I bought a couple of
horses - hunters-jumpers - and got involved with the high social elite you see
down in Southlands.” Snap shots from the time show a short-haired Marr in
boots and riding breeches, sitting atop a bay Thoroughbred gelding.
The real estate
phased continued for several years. Marr bought a small acreage in the
suburbs. He dated but never married. “The work first became
routine, then boring, then irksome, then unbearable. I was still good at
it, but the initial challenge was gone,” he said.
About this time,
things took a strange turn. Whether from boredom, a need to be alone, or
perhaps simple a desire to see the sights, he left his job and set off on a
solo journey in East Africa, primarily in the Kilimanjaro, Serengeti,
Ngorongoro Crater and Olduvai Gorge region of Tanzania. At some point
during that three month sojourn, something happened that changed the whole
focus of Marr's life. “If you want to be dramatic, you could say it came
to me all at once in a blinding flash while I was camping on the savannah, but
really, it developed very gradually.” What Marr was catching sight
of was a completely new philosophical system, one that in Marr's view is
comprehensive enough to explain the organization and development of life,
society and the Cosmos itself.
The full tenet of
this system came to him in dribs and drabs over a period of many months during
and after his return. Marr collected each of these thoughts on a file
card - more than 1,000 of them by the end - and worked at ordering, arranging,
and reordering them, trying to assemble his thoughts into a coherent
whole. The process took years. Marr's live-in girlfriend walked
out. “I really shouldn't be living with someone at that point," Marr
said. “I had to have my own room. I had to have a ‘DO NOT DISTURB’
sign on the door, and if anybody as much as knocked, my tenuous mental
construct would fall down like a house of cards.” The net result of his shuffling and reshuffling, typing and
retyping, was a manuscript more than 800 pages in length, describing a new and
comprehensive philosophical and phenomenological system. Marr christened
it OMNI-SCIENCE....
At first glance,
OMNI-SCIENCE bears some resemblance to the ideas of the Jesuit
philosopher-scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Both suggest that the
development of humanity must logically proceed in a converging upward spiral,
which Marr calls Integrative Transcendence, towards ever-superior levels of
organization and unity. Marr, however, is quick to point out how his
system differs from those of other western philosophers. “No
philosophical or religious system I’ve encountered is cosmic enough,” said
Marr. “They're too anthropocentric, too narrowly focused.” Marr's
system purportedly incorporates everything - inorganic and organic - throughout
the Universe, from the Big Bang to whatever end, all participating in the
multi-levelled Integrative Transcendence spiral towards universal life and
consciousness.
Hogwash?
Possibly. Even Marr himself had doubts (about the acceptability of his
system in the eyes of high academia). In the late 80s, Marr tossed both
manuscript and portable type-writer into his little green Toyota Celica and set
off down the West Coast to test his system with the best academic minds he could
find. One of the stops was the University of California at Berkeley, and
another was Stanford. “This was when my sales training paid off.
When I got to town, the first thing I'd do was find a course catalog and look
up the professors who were teaching the courses I liked. Back in my hotel
room, I'd crank out a dozen or so letters. ‘Dear Prof. so and so, I have
a matter of philosophical interest that I'd like to discuss with you. The
time required would be about two hours...’ Then I'd go back to campus and
put the letters into the professors’ cubbyholes. The next day, I'd call
and ask for an appointment. We'd talk for two hours, and at the end, I'd
ask for a letter of critique.”
The good professors'
reactions to this approach can be discerned from the letter written by William
Kimbel, president of the Institute of Human Origins at Berkeley: “Owing to the large number of half-baked
theories on cosmology currently in circulation, I admit that I faced the prospect
of my meeting with Mr. Marr with some trepidation. From the outset,
however, it was clear that Mr. Marr is no amateur populariser. On the
contrary, he is a dedicated scholar whose theories, I believe, make a profound
contribution to the fundamental definition of humankind in relation to the
broader universe… implications of great depth and breadth for the future course
of human actions… too important to ignore.”
Marr received
similarly effusive letters from other professors at Berkeley, Stanford, and the
Universities of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia...
Heady stuff.
Yet, more than a decade later, the manuscript remains unpublished.
Professor Braxton Alfred of Anthropology, UBC, said he even offered to help
find a publisher, but Marr said his manuscript was not yet ready for
publication. He did leave a copy of the then manuscript behind after his
presentation, but due to professional pressures, Alfred didn't get around to
looking at it until recently. Reading it now, Alfred said, only increases
his respect for Marr. It also sheds light on what it was that set him on
his current crusade.
“The presentation he
gave me was hard science, very thoroughly presented. He was right on the
numbers with everything in the presentation. I presumed likewise in these
documents,” Alfred said, referring to the OMNI-SCIENCE manuscript, “but these
are quite a different thing. That man had a revelation in Africa.
There's no other way to characterize it. It's clear that he was
experiencing some sort of emotional trauma, and something touched him, and what
these documents record are the revealed truth of that contact.”
According to the
manuscript, Alfred said, Marr had reached a crisis and was sitting in the
snows of Kilimanjaro, pointing a gun at his head. Then, as stated in Marr's
text: “The sun went down, the moon came up, and more than my hand had begun
trembling. It was then that this mysterious source of wisdom address me
for the first time: ‘I am seeking a miracle worker, to work a miracle upon this
Earth, on my behalf. Since you seem to have no further use of this body
of yours, which seems to be in prime condition, will you surrender it to me?’”
“That's when the
entity, or whatever it is, first made contact with him,” Alfred said, “but,
apparently, the contact continues. It seems that there is no end to
it. I would not be surprised if he has conversations with this entity
still.”
Having read the
manuscript, Alfred said he is no longer puzzled by Marr's decision to turn
away from the task of perfecting his book to work on behalf of endangered
species. “It was in Africa that this naturism force first came to the
fore...” The manuscript also gives some indication of the source of
Marr's willingness to take on seemingly hopeless causes. “He clearly came
to a crisis point in his life,” Alfred said, “and the heavens opened up and
truth was revealed, and he's been going strong eversince.”
Wherever his
confidence came stems from, when the “‘19th-century scholar' decided to prove
himself as an environmental saviour, he displayed a thoroughly 19th century
sense of ambition...
… Although some
conservationists predict the tiger will be extinct in five years, Anthony Marr
is convinced he can reverse the prophecy…
… China imported the
equivalent of 400 grown tigers and exported 27 million tiger derivative
products from 1990 to 1993… About
39,000 individual tiger containing products were seized in BC in 1996,
including everything from medicinals to tiger claws…
A Vancouver branch of Asian Conservation Awareness Program is planning
to begin an ad blitz this June, timed to coincide with the dragon-boat
festival. Ironically, Marr will likely not be invited to
participate. According to ACAP's Vancouver organizer Ling Zheng, Marr's
confrontational style doesn't fit in with ACAP's approach, which hinges on
establishing partnerships with the Chinese community groups and obtaining
sponsorship from prominent corporations. “We're trying to reach out to
the Chinese community, so we try not to use his name,” Zheng said. “If we
mention Anthony Marr, I will probably not get any help from organizations
like SUCCESS or the Chinese Cultural Centre. He can be quite harsh
towards certain Chinese people, and I've even heard that in the Chinese
community he's considered like a traitor.”...
“I
just do what I have to do in the most effective way I can,” said Anthony Marr.
1998-01-21-3
The Vancouver
Sun
by Stephen Hume
[Bear hunting foe attacked in city]
BC environmentalist Anthony Marr is recovering after being
beaten by a burly man who said, “Let this be a lesson to you.”
[Photo] Caption: Beaten
but unbowed – Anthony Marr says he is undeterred in his campaign despite
beating.
An environmentalist
known for his opposition to bear hunting and the black market for animal parts
was recovering Tuesday after being attacked in Vancouver’s West End.
Anthony Marr said he
was waylaid about 7:30 p.m. Monday in the 1600 block of Haro Street as he made
his way to his car after a dinner with his parents at their home.
Environmental groups
have been complaining about a sharp
increase in threats of physical violence directed at their members…
“I was parked in the
lane”, Marr said. “There was this guy
waiting for me by my car. He advanced a few steps and said, ‘Are you
Anthony Marr?’ I said yes and he
immediately attacked me.”
Marr… said his
assailant was ‘over six feet and around 200 pounds’ and rained blows upon his
head and face, fracturing facial bones and damaging his eye socket.
“Then he said, ‘Let
this be a lesson to you,’ and walked off,” Marr said.
The University of
British Columbia Hospital confirmed that Marr was admitted and treated in the
emergency ward shortly after 7:30 p.m..
Vancouver city police confirmed receiving his report of the attack about
8:40 p.m..
Marr recently led a
controversial and widely publicized Western Canada Wilderness Committee
campaign to have bear hunting banned in BC.
He has also been
active in successfully pressuring government for controls in the black market
on endangered species parts in the Asian community…
Marr’s silver 1993
Mazda sports car and its license plate became well known during the
anti-hunting campaign, he says.
Marr drive 12,000
kilometers and visited almost every significant community in BC during the
summer of 1996, holding public and
private meetings that laid the groundwork for a province-wide initiative
petition towards driving a referendum vote on banning bear hunting.
Campaigners obtained
93,000 signatures in a 90-day blitz that mobilized 1,800 volunteers, but fell
well short of the 250,000 or 10 percent of the electorate - needed to force government action under
recall and initiative legislation.
The petition
campaign, however, gave Marr a high media profile.
He said he was
constantly harassed by pro-hunting [forces].
Pickup trucks would routinely tailgate his car and he received anonymous
threats of violence by phone.
“My reaction is that
it merely strengthens my resolve to continue with this campaign…”
Paul George, a
director of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, described the attack on
Marr as “deplorable” and said it was time for police and government to take
seriously the “threats of violence and all the rhetoric that our people are
subjected to.”
“I think this
[violent rhetoric] unleashes hate against environmentalists just as much as it
does against Jews or people of a different sexual persuasion or anything like
that,” George said.
1998-01-21-3
Ming Pao Daily News (Chinese), global
[Marr Seeu-Sung assaulted]
… Around 7:30
yesterday evening, when Marr was returning to his car after a dinner with his
parents, a man approached him and asked if he was Anthony Marr. When Marr said ‘Yes’, the man launched his
fist attack…"
“It was so fast and
sudden I didn’t even have time to turn the other cheek,” Marr added with a wry
grin…
1998-06-05-5
West Kootenay Weekender, Nelson,
BC by Darren Davidson
[Profile: Conservationist Anthony Marr bares his stripes]
Being beaten for
what you believe in is nothing exceptionally shocking for animal
conservationist Anthony Marr…
“I don’t see being
beaten up as being a personal sacrifice. It’s a professional risk. It just
comes with the job.”…
… In 1996, Marr and
WCWC launched one of the most high profile animal conservation crusades Canada
has ever seen…
DD: "Your story
is certainly one of personal conviction."
AM: "Well, I
have a lot of respect for children.
When young children, in elementary school, tell me they think killing
animals for fun is wrong, I feel an obligation to champion their cause, because
they cannot yet speak for themselves.
That is a very powerful motivation for me… I also have my own personal feelings… I do love these animals that they kill."
1999-03-18-4 The
Hitavada ("The oldest and largest circulated English daily in Central
India")
[Great Mission -
Anthony Marr educating children about protecting the majestic
and beautiful tiger from extinction]
… Mr. Marr who is
tirelessly working in India… said that the tiger is the greatest national
treasure of India, but even more so, it is a global treasure that is revered
the world over. “Though it belongs to no individual, its loss would impoverish
us all.”…
… Mr. Marr said that
the Royal Bengal tiger might look the most secure of all remain subspecies, but
in truth, it is no more secure that the last carriage of a crashing train…
Currently, Mr. Marr,
along with (Canadian volunteer Anne Wittman) and… (Indian conservationist)
Faiyaz Khudsar are battling to educate the people living around the Kanha
(Tiger Reserve)…
1999-05-10-1
The Vancouver
Sun
by Alex Strachan
[Rupert’s Land, Discovery shows win early Leos]
… In television
awards, Andrew Gardner won best writing in an informational series for a
segment of Champions of the Wild featuring conservationist Anthony Marr and his
efforts to draw attention to the plight of India’s Bengal tiger. Champion’s
cinematographer Rudolf Kovanic was also cited for a segment about elephants…
1999-05-20-4
The Vancouver
Sun
by Anthony Marr
[Passionate Journey to Save a
Great Species]
(Published in the Insight section
of the Vancouver Sun in May 1999.)
The tigress was sleeping on her side in the undergrowth,
visible only as patches of brown and white camouflaged with shadowy black
stripes amidst the dense foliage. Behind her, within tail-flicking distance,
was the half-eaten carcass of a wild boar. She was not going anywhere, short of
angrily bolting in fear of being stepped on by our elephant which was, in my
opinion, getting a little too close. When the elephant snapped a branch off the
tree shading the tigress, she finally had enough, rolled onto all fours, glared
up at me and emitted a spine-tingling road. I snapped the last of a string of
photos and instructed the mahout to beat a prudent retreat.
It was near the end of January, during the second of ten weeks
in my third tiger conservation expedition to India's Kanha and Bandhavgarh
tiger reserves as WCWC's tiger campaign, under funding by the Canadian
International Development Agency (CIDA).
The tiger is one of the most beautiful animals ever evolved on
Earth and, yet, its extinction is not only probable, but a tragic reality
unfolding before our eyes. Of the original 150,000 tigers worldwide, only 4,000
to 5,000 still roam the wild. Of an original 8 sub-species of tigers, only 5
sub-species remain. Wild tiger populations are decreasing by about 2 tigers per
day. At this rate, our planet will be devoid of wild tigers within a decade,
along with most of their natural forest habitat and the hundreds of thousands
of species that currently co-exist within the tiger's ecosystem.
The aim of our Tigers-Forever program is to ensure the
survival of the Indian tiger in its natural habitat. But, at a death rate of
300 to 400 tigers a year, the Indian tiger is no more secure than the last
carriage of a crashing train.
As with most endangered and threatened species, India's tigers
face the dual threat of direct killing and habitat loss. Direct killing
includes poisoning by local people angered by their loss of cattle as tiger prey,
and commercial poaching of tigers to supply tiger bone and parts to the
Chinese, Japanese and Korean traditional medicine markets. WCWC has a
three-year-long campaign, which has helped clean up the shelves of Chinatown
stores, to convince Canadians not to consume illegally imported tiger
medicines.
Tiger habitat in India is rare and vulnerable. Even the
protected Tiger Reserves are being deforested by mining, logging and by local
villagers in desperate search of fuelwood. In addition, cattle and goats (India
has over 300 million free-ranging cattle) cause incredible damage by
over-grazing the tiger's forests.
For each of these problems there are long and short term
solutions. The lasting long-term solution is to re-kindle national pride in the
tiger as a symbol of India and motivate the villagers who live around Tiger
Reserves to become tiger conservationists. Shorter-term solutions include
introducing alternatives, like solar cookers, to reduce dependence on fuelwood,
tightening regulations on poaching, and finding ways for local villagers to
tangibly benefit from the tiger's protection.
It's impossible to make headway on any of these solutions
without the experience and leadership of local Indian people. During my latest
six-week trip, accompanied by several enthusiastic but sensitive Canadian
volunteers, I worked closely with staff at Tiger Trust India and embarked on
conservation work that seemed a far cry from the usual Canadian environmental
campaign.
To combat the dependence on fuelwood, we introduced villagers
to several models of solar cookers, designed in Canada but adapted so they
could be constructed out of locally available materials. We never ceased to be
heart-warmed by the local peoples' beaming amazement when we opened the solar
oven to reveal the fluffy sun-cooked rice, which we would then happily share.
To combat the cattle overpopulation and overgrazing problem, we bought a
special Haryanna bull that local people had been hankering for--one whose
offspring are high-yield milk producers. The villagers plan to pen-feed their
higher quality cows, and collect the cattle dung for biogas (methane)
generation--another avenue to reduce fuelwood consumption.
We also spent a lot of time talking with people, including 120
out of a total of 178 village leaders in the "buffer zone" region
surrounding Kanha National Park and Tiger Reserve. We discovered that the
general sentiment of the villagers is that the tiger reserves are little more
than rich peoples' playgrounds which generate no financial benefit for them.
Currently, India's Tiger Reserves charge tourists only $2.50
US per day for a park visit. In contrast, Kruger National Park in South Africa,
world-renown for its wildlife, charges $25.00 US per visit and Uganda charges
$180.00 US for one hour of Mountain Gorilla viewing. Neighbouring Nepal's
Chitwan National Park grosses $800,000 US per year in fees, half of which go to
the park to combat wildlife poaching and improve services, and half to the
local villagers who then help protect the park because it provides them with
revenues. The village officials and villagers we met with in the Kanha area
wholeheartedly embraced the idea of reforming park fees. We are convinced that
eco-tourists from places like Canada would happily pay a little higher Tiger
Reserve gate fee to help ensure that India's tigers survive in the wild.
This trip to India opened my eyes to the need to find
conservation solutions that not just work for local people, but have local
people at the helm. Our Indian colleagues, our multinational (Canadian,
American, British) volunteers and I worked hard (although trekking to an
isolated Indian village and watching the rice cook in a solar oven is a lot of
fun). We also, thankfully, saw a lot of tigers, and hope to for years to come.
by Anthony Marr
Note: The Bali tiger
(extinct as of the 1940s), the Caspian tiger (extinct in the 1970s) and the
Javan tiger (extinct in the 1980s). The other sub-species, in descending order
of population are: the Indian Royal Bengal tiger (about 2,500 left in the
wild), the Indo-Chinese tiger (1,000 left), the Siberian tiger (300 left), the
Sumatran tiger (300 left and the south China tiger (20 left).