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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Content Agenda

Hotspots, a documentary about the developing phenomenon of mass extinction, will concurrently air on PBS this month and be available for sale on DVD through various online outlets.

A two-hour tour of the world’s key conservation areas and the ongoing work to maintain the rich biodiversity that has been found there, Hotspots travels from Madagascar to Brazil and Southern California to provide instances of the mounting global crisis. Dr. Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International, guides viewers through his visits over three years and the solutions being developed to hold on to the most threatened life forms.» More

KOA Radio | Denver

Rick Barber talks with Dr. Michael Tobias about mass extinction, what it means, and what we should do to address it.

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KQED Radio

In the second half hour, we look at the most biologically diverse -- and most endangered -- parts of the planet. These environmental focal points are the subject of the new documentary "Hot Spots," which airs on KQED Public Television starting Monday, December 15 at 10:00pm.

Broadcasting & Cable

By Dr. Michael Tobias

An Open Letter to President-elect Obama:

Congratulations! You now have a remarkable opportunity to enrich America's environmental stewardship at home, and her influence abroad. Here are three suggested arenas for urgent action.

Biology Matters Most: Our nation's economic woes are an offspring of malfunctions at the very core of the planet's life-support systems. We are in the midst of the sixth mass-extinction spasm in the annals of biology.

This fact is not on most lawmakers' radar screens. Yet, it makes the present, and projected effects of global warming, pale by comparison: At current trends, we will lose between 40%-60% of all life on Earth by the end of this century; a staggering 43,000 individual populations of plants and animals going extinct every day.

Since passage of the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1973, more than 100 North American species have gone extinct. Despite this, the U.S. government seems reluctant to take science at its word and grant protection to the more than 280 new candidates for the endangered species list.

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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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