September 22, 2005 - Jackson Hole International Wildlife Film Festival, Wyoming

Filmmakers for Conservation is happy to announce the recipient of the second annual FFC Conservation Filmmaker of the Year Award:

Hardy Jones

Since he began his career in 1978, Hardy Jones has made more than 70 films, all of them related to conservation issues with locations ranging from the Florida Everglades to French Polynesia; from the Sea of Cortez to the fjords of Norway. Subjects include coral reefs, coastal habitat destruction, overfishing, harmful fish techniques, and ocean pollution.

His films have directly and demonstrably saved the lives of tens of thousands of dolphins in drive hunts and tuna nets. In 1980 Jones filmed the brutal slaughter of hundreds of dolphins at Iki Island, Japan. This footage, broadcast around the world on television news and in his film led to a shut down of the dolphin fishery at Iki. Up to two thousand dolphins per year were thus saved from a savage death.

His film "If Dolphins Could Talk" (Turner) was an important factor in the decision by American canning companies to refuse tuna caught in association with dolphins. By inserting an 800 number into breaks in the broadcast, Jones generated thousands of telegrams to the chairman of Starkist Tuna who announced Starkist would no longer accept tuna caught in a manner, which harmed dolphins. Other corporations followed. Tens of thousands of dolphins were spared death and maiming.

Hardy Jones' most recent film (commissioned by NATURE), exposed the high levels of contaminants in killer whales and other marine mammals in the Pacific Northwest to an initial television audience of 4-million. He is currently at work on a film that documents pollution levels reaching dinner tables from Japan to the USA to the Arctic. This project will include outreach through theatrical showings in the USA and abroad.