[Mb-civic] CBC News - GREENPEACE CO-FOUNDER BOB HUNTER DIES

Mon May 2 14:42:53 PDT 2005

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GREENPEACE CO-FOUNDER BOB HUNTER DIES
WebPosted Mon May  2 14:25:47 2005

Toronto---Broadcaster, author and journalist Bob Hunter, who co-founded
the environmental action group Greenpeace, has died. He was 63.

Hunter, who spearheaded campaigns against whaling and seal hunting as
well as nuclear testing and the dumping of toxic waste into the oceans,
had been battling prostate cancer.

In 1971, Hunter and a group of other environmentalists sailed a rusty
old 80-foot fishboat, the Phyllis Cormack, from Vancouver to Alaska in
a campaign to stop a nuclear weapons testing on Amchitka in the
Aleutian Islands.

The group became Greenpeace, and by 1973 Hunter became its first
president, helping turn it into the biggest environmental organization in
the world.

Rex Weyler, a long-time friend and member of Greenpeace, said Hunter was
a born leader.

"He was a natural leader because people would get caught up in his
enthusiasm, not just for the cause for peace or for ecology, but the
enthusiasm just for the magic of life and the wonder of life and vision
of what we could do."

In the late 1980's, Hunter left Greenpeace and returned to his
journalistic roots, writing books, working as a TV reporter in Toronto,
and making documentaries &#8211;including a film on the prostate cancer
he had been diagnosed with.

 CBC ARCHIVES: Bob Hunter

He became the ecology news specialist for CHUM's Citytv and was also
known in Toronto for his early morning Paper Cuts &#8211; a segment on
the network where he would appear in his bathrobe and comment on the
stories of the day in the newspapers.

"This was a man with a great loving heart, a brilliant mind and a
massive spirit," said Stephen Hurlbut, vice-president of news
programming for Citytv.

Hunter was honoured as one of Time magazine's Eco Heroes of the 20th
Century. He won a number of awards for his writings, including a Governor
General's Award in 1991 for his work Occupied Canada: A Young White Man
Discovers His Unsuspected Past.

In 2001, he ran unsuccessfully for the Liberals in a provincial
by-election.