Animal Tales with Randy Grim | Clear Channel

Randy Grim talks with Dr. Michael Tobias about the urgent need to protect all life and preserve biodiversity.

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Studio Tulsa with Rick Fisher | KWGS-FM

Rick Fisher talks with Dr. Michael Tobias and Jane Gray Morrison about their new book SANCTUARY and new feature documentary HOTSPOTS, both dedicated to raising awareness around the current mass extinction and worldwide efforts to stop it.

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The Southland Times | New Zealand


Stewart Island's global significance has been highlighted in internationally acclaimed ecologist, historian, anthropologist, explorer, author and film-maker Michael Tobias' latest film and book. Southland Times reporter Amy Milne spent a day with one of the natural world's renaissance men.

A fly is buzzing at the window of the Church Hill Cafe on Stewart Island as Michael Tobias sits down for lunch.

He quickly acts to save it, cupping his hand around it and gently scooping it towards the window he's opened to set it free.

"Everything is precious," he says.

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Mindfood | Australia

by Michael Tobias & Jane Gray Morrison

Throughout the world, there are places where Mother Nature is honoured and protected. These sanctuaries are a step towards conserving our biosphere.

AUSTRALIA - For most of our lives we have searched the world for those rare places where humans have worked passionately to save remnants of the original Eden. There are, as it turns out, more than 114,000 protected areas on Earth. Some of them are enormous, such as Alaska’s Wrangell St Elias, the largest national park in the US at over 5.3 million hectares. Others are as tiny as the hectare comprising one of Japan’s most symbolic sanctuaries, the sand garden of Ryoan-ji, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in Kyoto’s remarkable greenbelt.

What these protected areas share is the critical and timely lesson that celebrating nature may be the key to our future survival as a species, not to mention the survival of millions of other species that share this miraculous planet with us.

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2 Magazine | Asia

By François Oosthuizen

BANGKOK - The protection of biodiversity is now the biggest issue on Earth – much bigger than global warming. We are currently witnessing the sixth major extinction event in the history of our planet, and the greatest since the dinosaurs disappeared, 65 million years ago. The co-producer of a new television documentary that takes cameras deep inside critical conservation areas around the world spoke exclusively to 2magazine while on a brief stopover in Bangkok.

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Prime Time Focus

AARP Radio - All around the world people who really care about animals and the environment are making a difference. Now a new book called Sanctuary picks some of the places where one person, through unfailing devotion, has changed things for the better. The authors have also made a stunning movie called Hot Spots that airs on November 2nd on PBS stations.

Prime Time Focus host Alyne Ellis reports on a book and television show with a clear focus - proving that dedicated people can make a difference when it comes to saving the fragile parts of our planet. Watch the preview of the PBS documentary Hot Spots, and then listen to Alyne's report on the film, and the new book Sanctuary.

Michael Tobias and Jane Morrison are the creative force behind the film and book. They run the Dancing Star Foundation, which has the goal of "helping humankind protect the natural world." Find out more, and learn how you can become involved with the links below.

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Radio New Zealand

Dr Michael Tobias is an ecologist, historian, filmmaker and author. He is also a leading light in the 'sanctuary' movement.

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TULSA WORLD

By James D. Watts, Jr., World Scene Writer

Oklahoma was one of the places considered for the film "Hotspots." That the state failed to end up in the finished documentary, however, is a good thing in the eyes of Michael Tobias.

Tobias, the executive director of the Dancing Star Foundation, is a writer and filmmaker who has devoted himself to issues of conservation, wildlife preservation and bio-diversity.

Tobias, along with his wife and frequent collaborator Jane Gray Morrison, will be at the Oklahoma Center for Poets and Writers' Celebration of Books on Saturday. They will take part in panel discussions on wildlife and conservation in life and literature, and will host a screening of their latest film, "Hotspots," at 7 p.m. at the Circle Cinema, 10 S. Lewis Ave.

"A hot spot refers to a place on Earth — specifically on land — that contains at least 1,500 flowering plants endemic to the region, 70 percent of which are threatened with extinction," Tobias said, speaking by phone from New Zealand, where he is observing the re-introduction of two rare species of birds to an ecological preserve there.

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Radio Live New Zealand

Auckland - Graeme Hill talks with Michael Tobias about the urgent need to step-up worldwide conservation efforts in critical conservation hotspots like New Zealand.

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Wild Talk (IUCN/WWF)

Geneva - Wild Talk is taken on a magical mystery tour of the world's hotspots by Michael Tobias, who followed Russ Mittermeier during the making of his film Hotspots. We travel from Madasgcar to the city lights of Los Angeles as Michael describes what the crew saw on their way and discusses the importance of conserving these wonderfully rich areas of biodivserity.

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Radio New Zealand

Auckland - Nine to Noon’s Kathryn Ryan interviews leading environmentalist, and environmental film maker, Michael Tobias who has just completed a mammoth 20-year film project.

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DAILY BREEZE | LOS ANGELES

By Kristin S. Agostoni, Staff Writer

For three years, Michael Tobias traveled the globe documenting the daunting efforts under way to protect threatened plants and wildlife.

He's followed a stewardship program to protect an endangered parrot species in New Zealand and the native plantings occurring on Easter Island, once home to rich palm forests before humans ripped them from the landscape.

This weekend, the anthropologist, ecologist and filmmaker will bring those stories and others to the South Bay, which will get an early look at the new documentary he produced with his wife, fellow ecologist Jane Gray Morrison.

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THE DAILY BRUIN | LOS ANGELES

Seda Terzyan, Bruin contributor

With thousands of animal and plant species becoming extinct each day, many researchers call for a reversal of the destruction caused by human life to save the planet.

“Hotspots,” a new documentary being screened exclusively at UCLA tonight, attempts to remind people of the greatness of the planet they inhabit and the importance of conserving life for medical purposes. It takes viewers on an adventure through a handful of the 35 most biologically rich life zones on earth.

“Humans are causing massive extinctions across all taxa, but we can come together and reverse these effects just by saving the hot spots,” said professor Michael Tobias, the director of the film.

By making these locations a priority, conservation ecologists believe humans can affect the future of evolution on a large scale.

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WAIKATO TIMES | NEW ZEALAND

By Jeff Neems

Waikato's ecological oasis, Maungatautari, features as one of the planet's 35 most biologically significant sites in a new international documentary to screen in Hamilton next week.

The New Zealand premier of Hotspots will be held at Waikato University's Gallagher Chamber (Wel Energy Trust Academy of Performing Arts) next Thursday, and will include a short talk by director Michael Tobias. He and co-director Jane Gray Morrison spent several weeks on Maungatautari last year filming for their documentary.

The 90-minute film, released earlier this year, covers efforts to save tens of thousands of species globally and 35 different locations considered Earth's most biologically important sites. The film took three years to make and covers some 20 years of research.

"From the trust perspective, we're delighted to have been chosen to show the premier," said Jim Mylchreest, Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust chief executive. "It's recognition of the importance of Maungatautari in terms of conservation issues in New Zealand and overseas."

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EPUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Hotspots is a new documentary produced by the Dancing Star Foundation.

In Geeklish, a hotspot is a location that provides public Wi-Fi access. But talk with an ecologist, and you'll discover that a hotspot is a geographical location containing an immense diversity of animals, birds, or plants. The key to saving our planet is to protect and preserve these environmental hotspots.

The new film documents the latest and best efforts to save these essential places.
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RED ORBIT

By Lucy Reed

Still being established, Maungatautari Ecological Island is already considered a world leader.

An American conservation filmmaker says Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust leads the world in mainland islands and he wants to show it to the world.

Michael Tobias has made more than 100 films and is currently shooting a two-hour film called Hot Spots, showcasing locations around the world where endangered species and "fragmented habitat are most severe", but where people and governments are rallying to prevent extinction.

Mr Tobias and his wife Jane Morrison are filming 18 locations around the country.

"One could film forever here. It's just the nature of a region with biodiversity."


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