Emily HunterNature or nurture? Born into a family of environmental campaigners – Robert and Bobbi Hunter of Greenpeace fame -Emily Hunter grew up with the environmental movement.

Her father was the first president of Greenpeace and her mother was a co-founder and treasurer.

Emily has sailed around the world on activist ships including Sea Shepherd helping to save animals and fight against climate change.

Environmental journalist

Today, her change making is in media, informing and offering critical debate on the struggle to protect the planet.

Today, she is an environmental advocacy journalist who reports from the frontlines of environmental issues and activist movements. She has worked as the eco-correspondent for MTV News Canada and is an eco-blogger for This Magazine.

Emily has hosted and co-produced three TV-documentaries on MTV News Canada, ranging from the Canadian Tar Sands to the Toronto G20. She was one of the characters on the hit Animal Planet show “Whale Wars.”  And she has done eco-reporting from protests at the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009.

Currently, Emily’s first book has been published called The Next Eco-Warriors, an insider’s look at the new wave of environmental activists.

On Women Activists

In an interview in 2009 with Shamelessmag, Emily Hunter said:

Being a woman is difficult, especially in the environmental movement. It seems that as one movement progress, another is degraded. I find that women are constantly taken out of the picture with environmentalism. My mother, Bobbi Hunter, who was a co-founder of Greenpeace, first treasurer of Greenpeace and the first women to save a whale by putting her body between a harpoon and a whale – is completely cut out of history. People know of Robert Hunter, Rex Weyler, Patrick Moore (all co-founders of Greenpeace), Paul Watson (Sea Shepherd founder), and David Suzuki (world renowned environmentalist). And sure, we have Dian Fossey who fought to protect Gorillas in Africa.

But the reality is, the face of environmentalism is predominantly masculine. Women are cut out of the picture when it comes to the portrayal and voice of environmentalism. Therefore, I find my fight as a female environmental activist is just as much a fight for women’s equality and against patriarchy as it is against the destructive engines depleting our world. The two battles are very much intertwined. 

Sources: Emily Hunter’s blog, Shameless Magazine

Emily Hunter battles against excavating tar sands

Inside the Protest – Emily Hunter’s documentary