Comics / Comics News

Sanctuary

By The Editor
July 10, 2008 - 18:59

According to Michael Tobias and Jane Gray Morrison, protecting innocence is perhaps humanity’s deepest procreative instinct, and celebrating nature our highest calling. In SANCTUARY: Global Oases of Innocence (Council Oak/On-Sale Date: September 1, 2008, Tobias and Morrison profile globally significant sanctuaries at the forefront of an emerging multinational movement to sanctify nature and save her last pristine places–a vital step toward the total renewal of the biosphere.

SANCTUARY is an urgent reminder that the extinction of life on Earth has accelerated up to 25,000 times its normal, natural rate, putting our modern consumer culture in a league with supervolcanic eruptions and catastrophic asteroid impacts earlier in Earth’s history. Pictured on its pages are species whose numbers are so low that every last individual is known by name. From microbes to mammals, the academically-acclaimed conservationist couple re-examines humanity’s role in the natural order of life on Earth, and our responsibility as a sentient species to consciously care for creation in ways that integrate best science, public policy, spiritual values and sustainable economics.

From wildlife habitats set aside to save rare species on the brink of extinction to urban shelters set up to rescue abused farm animals, SANCTUARY takes you on an epic photographic journey to many of the world’s most extraordinary sanctuaries, complete with in-depth science-based case studies that inspire a sense of awe at both nature’s beauty and the damage we have already done to her. But far from a tome of doom and gloom, SANCTUARY celebrates living examples of one of humanity’s highest callings to transform modern societies based on extraction and exploitation into a unified global culture of economic and ecological restoration.

SANCTUARY showcases the continuing work of such animal protection luminaries as Michael Aufhauser, Brigitte Bardot, Gene Baur, and Howard Buffett. Over 800 color photographs take readers on a 360-page journey through over 20 countries visiting sanctuaries in Alaska, Austria, Bahrain, Bhutan, Borneo, Brunei, California, France, India, Japan, Malaysia, Manhattan, Namibia, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Suriname, South Africa, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the United States and Yemen. It is a museum-quality book written to inform policymakers and scientists and inspire a new generation of activists to be the change that creates a better world.

“SANCTUARY is a gorgeous coffee table tome that will leave readers breathless from the expeditionary nature of the photos and text, and the emotional story-telling at the core of these unique journeys,” said co-author Michael Tobias, president of the Dancing Star Foundation. “The book’s startling juxtapositions and deeply uplifting message–amid so much bad environmental news–is like nothing that has been published.”

The Sanctuary Movement in the West was inspired largely by longstanding English law that has protected London’s 6,000-acre Epping Forest for a millennium, a unique level of protection afforded a primeval forest back in the 12th century. The modern movement was revived in the 20th century by American churches offering safe harbor to political, intellectual and religious refugees. This sociopolitical incarnation is more commonly called the New Sanctuary Movement. SANCTUARY, the book, presents a parallel dimension of the movement that is committed to current forms of creative, non-violent activism integrating animal rights, conservation biology and spiritual ecology. Since the creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872, over 1,200 other national parks have been created around the world. There are today more than 114,000 public and private protected areas and fragments, many with ecological corridors re-connecting them.

Michael Tobias is a global ecologist, author, filmmaker and president of the Dancing Star Foundation. As the author of 37 books and writer/director/producer of over 100 films pertaining to environmental, cultural, social or scientific issues, he has been called the “Carl Sagan of the humanities.” Tobias obtained his Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness at the University of California-Santa Cruz. Tobias has been a professor at such universities as Dartmouth College, the University of New Mexico–where he held the Garrey Carruthers Chair of Honors–and the University of California-Santa Barbara where he was a Visiting Professor of Environmental Studies and Regents’ Lecturer. His research has taken him to 80 countries where he has specialized in an interdisciplinary approach to critical environmental issues involving historical, scientific, ethical and philosophical frameworks for policy research and documentation, demographic analysis, ecological anthropology, biodiversity conservation, art history, comparative literature, the history of ideas, sustainability issues, animal protection and non-violent activism. Tobias’ countless films have helped shape public policy in numerous instances from green space land reform bills in Ohio to clean-up protocols for the U.S. bases in Antarctica, from hydrogen as an alternative clean energy source to oversight of regulations regarding supertankers. In 1996, Tobias received the “Courage of Conscience Award” for his commitment to animals. In 2004 he was awarded the Parabola Focus Award for his lifetime body of work. His most recent trilogy of feature films, Mad Cowboy, No Vacancy, and Hotspots for Public Broadcasting are, collectively, a comprehensive overview of the human condition.

Jane Gray Morrison has been making films about the environment ever since retiring at a young age as an opera singer in Europe. In more than 30 countries she has brought to public focus issues pertaining to biodiversity loss, animal protection, pollution, human health and explored stunning interdisciplinary approaches to mitigating conflicts, whether in Ireland, India, China or the Antarctic. Morrison produced the ten-hour epic docu-drama, Voice of the Planet, for Turner Broadcasting, which involved filming for two years in 25 countries. The series was a veritable biography of the earth, starring William Shatner and Faye Dunaway, and detailed such themes as water, chemical and oil pollution, animal cruelty, deforestation, the population explosion, the history of imagination in the wilderness, alternative energy and ecological anthropology. In later films, Morrison has chronicled the crisis of industrialized agriculture, the crisis of human consumerism and its impact on habitat, and biodiversity loss. Her expertise ranges from the behavioral ecology of burros to ecological restoration issues in New Zealand, ecological aesthetics, and family planning. Many of these topics have emerged in her several books. As Executive Vice President of Dancing Star Foundation for nearly a decade, Morrison has worked with partners in two dozen countries in an effort to help increase protections for threatened habitats, as well as overseeing domestic sanctuaries protecting rescued farm animals. Morrison also oversees a program sponsored by Dancing Star Foundation at UCLA Medical School that brings together new and vital research and education with the goal of ending cancer through integrative oncology innovation.

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12