Journalism
While still a student, Helvarg traveled to Northern Ireland in 1973. The civil warfare known as "The Troubles" was at a height, and Helvarg submitted reports on the conflict to the Liberation News Service. Helvarg focussed on the role of women in the conflict, and highlighted allegations that agents of the British government had participated in sectarian murders. After graduating from college, he moved to San Diego to work as a freelance journalist. He published "Ireland Diary; A Day in the Life" in the underground publication
San Diego Door, and wrote for the weekly newspaper
San Diego Newsline.
From 1979 to 1983, Helvarg covered the U.S. role in Central American conflicts, initially as a radio reporter for The Associated Press and Pacifica Radio in Nicaragua and El Salvador. His exclusive reports included combat coverage of the first town to fall to Sandinista rebels, the first delivery of U.S. gunships to El Salvador, the first visit to Contra camps in Honduras, and the last interview with Sister Ita Ford before her murder by the Salvadoran military. He was arrested by the Salvadoran army and deported from El Salvador in 1983 while reporting on a massacre of civilians.
After returning to California, he qualified as a private investigator, and resumed freelance writing. He wrote reports on underwater technology, articles about John Hoagland after conducting the photographer's last interview, and an interview with Jonas Salk. Helvarg became increasingly involved in television production, although he continued his freelance career. Throughout the late 1980s, his television topics were dominated by AIDS education, particularly for the Hispanic community.
In the early 1990s, he began to research the conflict between the US free-market environmentalist group Wise Use and the green movement, which was eventually published as
The War against the Greens in 1994. The Wise Use movement
Books
"Saved by the Sea -- A Love Story with Fish,"
"Saved by the Sea" comes out with Thomas Dunne Books (an imprint of St. Martin's) in May. Ocean Explorer Sylvia Earle says, "This book has the power to change the way you think about the world, about yourself, and the future of humankind." Helvarg writes what he knows about the changes in his life and our Ocean world over the last half century.
"Rescue Warriors - The U.S. Coast Guard, America's Forgotten Heroes" (St. Martin's 2009)
Robert Kennedy Jr. says, "david Helvarg's terrific new book takes you to the cutting edge of adventure as he rides along with the men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard. This in-depth and lively look at the history and changing missions of America's 'Rescue Warriors' should be considered a must-read for anyone who loves the water or cares about the safety, security, and stewardship of our nation from sea to shining sea."Bill McKibben writes, "They say that 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help' is the ultimate oxymoron. But as this vivvid book makes powerfully clear, in the cae of the Coast Guard it's the simple truth. Stow this volume next to the chart case."
"50 Ways To Save the Ocean" (Inner Ocean, 2006)
Earle writes, "Combining widsom and humor, scientific accuracy and artistic genious, Helvarg and Toomey show why the ocean matters to us all...Everyone, from toddler to tycoon, can find inspiration for action in this must-have guide to ocean care.""This is a grat book - it makes saving the oceans fun and doable (which it is, by the way)" adds actor Ted Danson"This book is an important guide for the public to saving our oceans." - Leon Panetta, former chair - Pew Oceans commission, now director CIA.
The War against the Greens
Helvarg's book
The War against the Greens (1994) describes organized opposition to the environmental movement in the United States. He investigated the Wise Use movement, which he characterizes as a network of anti-environmentalist groups. Wise Use aims to facilitate extensive use of natural resources and to privatize the National Park Service. The first edition explored the origins of the organization in 1988 and its covert support by the administration of U.S. President George H.W. Bush. Helvarg identified its funding and the multinational corporations and other powerful figures with which it was associated. He catalogued the use of violence that he believed to be organized by the movement against environmental activists, and the ineffective response of law-enforcement agencies. A revised edition published in 2004 extended this to cover the early years of President George W. Bush's administration.
Wisconsin Stewardship Network News described it as a book that "provides a fascinating and frightening insight into the violent fringe of the anti-conservation Wise Use movement [ and recommends it] in its entirety to readers who want a detailed examination of the origins, development and violent tendencies of Wise Use." The opposing view was put by Jesse Walker who, reviewing the book for
American Enterprise, wrote that it "offers environmentalists a conspiracy theory to account for the populist backlash against their movement". Helvarg had accused Wise Use of astroturfing; Walker described his book as "a weapon in a propaganda war".
War against the Greens is widely cited by activists inside the environmental movement (for example Community Rights Counsel Community Rights Counsel: The Takings Project and Land Tenure Center LTC 157 ) and gave rise to numerous rebuttals from Wise Use and its supporters (including Ron Arnold).
Blue Frontier...Dispatches from America's Ocean Wilderness
Helvarg's second book,
Blue Frontier... Dispatches from America's Ocean Wilderness (2001, revised 2006), was named on the
Los Angeles Times "Best Books of 2001" republished in 2006. In it Helvarg explores the effects of human activity in general, and of commerce and policy in particular, on marine life. He postulates a trend towards destruction, and suggests that it is possible to reverse this. He then describes some of the people and groups that are working to preserve or enhance the marine environment.
This book prompted Senator John Kerry to observe that "David Helvarg underscores the full measure of the challenges before us: If we hope to explore the Blue Frontier, we must travel cautiously, repairing the damage we have done, understanding before we exploit, and always preserving the natural systems that have created it." It was also one of the catalysts for the establishment of the Blue Frontier Campaign and has become a definitive text for US marine conservation (characterized as 'the Seaweed rebellion').
The Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide
Helvarg is the editor of Blue Frontier Campaign's first major publication:
The Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide (2005), a directory for those interested in the protection and restoration of United States coastal lands and waters. Blue Frontier Campaign plans to publish a new edition of the guide every two years.
This reference book lists over 2,000 organizations involved in the conservation of the oceans and coastal areas that border the United States. Each entry includes contact information and a brief description of that organization's activities. The directory is divided into four listings: a geographical listings of groups; relevant government agencies; academic marine programs; and marine and coastal parks, and protected areas.
Feeling the Heat
Helvarg contributed two chapters to
Feeling the Heat...Reports from the Frontlines of Climate Change (2004): Chapter Eight 'Australia, Florida and Fiji: Reefs At Risk' and Chapter 10 'Antarctica: The Ice is Moving' are about threatened ecosystems.
The book is a development of a suite of articles that appeared in the October/November 2000 edition of
E/The Environmental Magazine. The publishers "aimed to move beyond the scientific debate [] to document [] the evidence for a changing climate". Each chapter is a first person account of places threatened by global warming. According to Helvarg, warming waters are killing the world's coral and threatening the extinction of Australia's Great Barrier Reef and the reefs around the Florida Keys, while the rising waters threaten to engulf the entire ocean nation of Fiji. In Antarctica he observed scientists measuring the krill population and concludes that the reduction that they found is a consequence of increased water temperatures.
Broadcasting
Helvarg has produced more than 40 television documentaries broadcast by PBS, The Discovery Channel, and others. His 1986 documentary
Sex Inc. was the highest rating show broadcast on the San Francisco PBS station KQED. Other documentaries focused on the military, politics, health and environmental topics. He is a commentator for the National Public Radio station Public Radio International's program
Marketplace.
His first documentaries drew upon his experiences as a war correspondent in Northern Ireland and Central America. When he moved to San Francisco he was commissioned to produce programs about AIDS awareness for the Hispanic community and these led to other documentaries about Hispanic health. In 1989 Globe TV commissioned a program about Greenpeace to coincide with the launch of the new
Rainbow Warrior vessel. This brought Helvarg into contact with green activists, with whose cause he found he sympathized. He would return to green themes in 1991 and 1992 but in the meantime he continued to make series about health, and topical news. From 1992 onwards his energies were focussed on environmental programming with some health commissions.
As of 2005 he continues to plan a series of documentaries about ocean stewardship to support the work of the Blue Frontier Campaign.
Blue Frontier Campaign
In 2003 Helvarg founded the marine conservation activist organization Blue Frontier Campaign, of which he became the president. Originally entitled the "Ocean Awareness Project", the Campaign has established a nationwide network of grassroots lobbyists. It is campaigning for an American Oceans Act to protect what the members call "our public seas" and is working to improve local, state, federal and global policies on marine conservation. Helvarg writes articles and books on its behalf. He edited the
2005—2006 Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide and (with Philippe Cousteau and 'Sherman's Lagoon' cartoonist Jim Toomey, the book, '50 Ways to Save the Ocean' and has organized several conferences: in Washington, D.C. in July 2004 and March 2009 and at the National Aquarium in Baltimore in April 2005 and San Francisco in 2005. These conferences brought together activists, academics, officials, and politicians in a series of seminars. The Campaign is based in Washington, D.C., and the San Francisco Bay Area where Helvarg lives.
Awards
Helvarg won his first national award in 1988 when he won an Emmy for community service in recognition of his work on AIDS Lifeline, a networked television AIDS awareness campaign. His subsequent awards include two National Association for Interpretation awards for Interpretive Communications (in 1989 and 1991), the Nike Earthwrite Award (1997), a National Health Information Award (1999) and a CINE
- "On a mission with the Sandinistas." ... Associated Press, June 19, 1979.
