South African seal rescuer Francois Hugo can shut down Namibia's sealing industry for good. All he needs is $14 million to buy it out. Read this exclusive interview with one of Africa's most passionate seal advocates.
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South African seal rescuer Francois
Hugo can shut down Namibia's sealing industry for good. All he needs is
$14 million to buy it out
The Namibian Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources
announced the new seal harvesting season, which officially began on
July 1 and ends on November 15, with a quota of 91,000 seals -- 85,000
pups and 6,000 bulls.
But so far, no Namibian Cape fur seals have been killed.
The
seal hunt has ostensibly been put on hold as negotiations are being
held to potentially sell off the Namibian sealing industry to Hugo's
seal rescue organization Seal Alert-SA.
Hugo is now in a race to raise the $14 million to buy out the sealing
business of Hatem Yavuz, the last remaining purchaser of seal skins
from Namibia.
Yavuz
approached Hugo in late June, days before the start of the seal cull,
with a proposal to sell his business. This was after Seal Alert-SA and
anti-fur NGOs mounted a campaign exposing
Yavuz's involvement in the fur trade of this endangered seal species.
The main target of the hunt are nursing baby seals, which are desired
for their fur. Older male bulls are also killed to supply the Asian
markets with seal penis, considered an aphrodisiac.
One
seal pup skin from Namibia costs $7. A standard individual donation to
an anti-sealing campaign is $25. It costs $100 to adopt a seal at one
of the 79 seal rescue centers worldwide. It costs Hugo about $1,250 to
raise a rescued seal pup for one year. The deal on Hugo's table equates
to buying the rights at $14 per each of the 1 million seals from being
killed in Namibia for the next 10 years. Looking at the math alone,
this is an extremely worthwhile deal.
In
1972, the first seal pup census was taken in Namibia. At the time, the
nation was home to 13 seal colonies. Four of these colonies remain on
11 islands off the coast of Namibia and have recently received official
protection. Overall, Cape fur seals are extinct in 98% of their
original and preferred habitat -- offshore islands. However
since 1990, the Namibian government has given the sealing industry
quotas for annual seal hunts of two colonies which exist unnaturally on mainland Namibia. Three
years ago, the government increased the seal pup quota by 30%, -- from
65,000 to 85,000. Hugo knew that this figure would result in every pup
being killed in both mainland colonies. That is when he started a
campaign against the government's policy.
The government has granted the right for the sealing industry to kill one million seals until 2019. The
annual quota is determined by scientific assessments of the annual seal
population, which should under sustainable-use policies not exceed 30%
of pups born. The current quota exceeds the surviving pups by July 1.
The deal on the table will include selling the right to kill the one
million seals.
In July of 2007, Hugo was invited to speak with the Namibian prime minister Nahas Angula,
who connected him with officials in the mining, fishing and tourism
industries in order to resolve the issue. But there were disputes over
how data was being presented by the government scientists. In the end,
the talks were stalled by the government. That
led to Hugo getting Namibia's two biggest tourism partners -- the
Netherlands and Germany -- to ban seal products. Hugo's efforts to get
Namibia's seals included in the recent EU ban were also successful. But Namibia is looking to Asia and Turkey as its main markets.
Several
weeks ago, Hugo discovered the name of Namibia's last buyer for seal
skins. It was Hatem Yavuz, who is based in Australia. Thousands of
activist emails flooded Yavuz, who then made an offer to sell his
interests in Namibia. This sale would amount to buying out the entire
Namibian seal industry.
Though
the Namibian sealing season has officially begun and sealers are
currently allowed to start killing seals, Hugo has stated that all the
parties involved in the talks are aware that if one seal is killed, he
will call off the deal.
13.7
Billion Years asked Francois Hugo about the current buyout deal that
could stop the annual slaughter of Namibia's endangered Cape fur seals.
13.7: What is the current situation regarding the possible sale of the Namibian sealing industry to Seal Alert-SA?
Hugo:
The two-week private business agreement to halt the seal cull passes on
July 15. Thereafter it's a question of putting the cash on the table.
Buyer and seller are talking almost daily.
13.7: How close are you to raising the $14 million to buy out Yavuz?
Hugo:
Seal Alert-SA is a private seal protection and rescue organization. We
are therefore not a public fundraising NGO. I have no staff or mailing
lists or databases full of supporters and membership details. Therefore
I have had to appeal to the media and other anti-seal groups to ask
their members to support. This takes time. Pledges have come in from
$14 to $200,000, but to date not even 10% to secure the buyout has been
achieved. It needs greater media and NGO awareness and support.
13.7: What are the biggest roadblocks to this deal?
Hugo:
The biggest roadblocks are the myths being uttered by the anti-seal
hunt groups as a way out of supporting the buyout with their
accumulated funds -- running into billions of dollars -- derived from
decades of anti-seal hunt campaigns.
13.7: According to the
Atlantic Canadian Anti-Sealing Coalition,
the rights to kill seals in Namibia are granted to only three
companies: Cape Cross Seals, Sea Lion Products and Namibia Venison and
Marine Exporters. Is that correct? And Yavuz is their only buyer of
skins?
Hugo: That is correct, but it is basically two concession holders for the two seal colonies.
13.7: If Seal Alert-SA is able to purchase Yavuz's stake in the Namibian sealing industry, will other sealing operations continue?
Hugo: No. The deal is to buy out the entire Namibian sealing industry and shut it down.
13.7: If this is a private business deal, how exactly is the government involved?
Hugo:
The government must be involved from the beginning for a number of
reasons. First of all, selling the rights to kill one million seals
needs the minister's consent. Should the minister not decide to give it
or refuse, Yavuz would therefore have nothing to sell and could be
liable for attempted fraud. Secondly, the government also needs to
state its position equally whether it would now adopt a policy of
non-consumptive use of the seals in line with the constitution of
Namibia -- therefore declaring seal culls officially over.
13.7: What will happen if the government doesn't agree to include the transfer of the killing rights in the deal?
Hugo:
A number of things. Firstly, I could charge the sealing industry for
allegedly attempted fraud and extortion. These charges could force the
government to suspend the sealing rights pending the outcome of a
trial. Secondly, the seal processing factories could be sold for a
lower price, closing all means of processing seals. Thirdly, an offer
could be made to pay the government the full sealing levies and
re-train and re-employ seal clubbers as seal colony protectors and
monitors. There are many options, but cash on the table must come first.
13.7: Your recent press release mentions the possibility of financial support for the sale from the
International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), but they have remained silent. What do you think is the reason for this?
Hugo:
Three decades ago, IFAW developed a campaign to end seal hunts where an
estimated $1.5 billion has been raised. Its support base of 3 million
supporters consists mainly of members wishing to end seal hunts.
Unfortunately, IFAW has widened its activities to expand their support
base and have therefore diverted more and more funds and energies into
other animal causes. It clearly has become more profitable to speak out
about seal hunts than to end them.
13.7: The
Namibian government offered a very cheap buyout of their sealing
industry to IFAW when the industry was still in its infancy, but it
never happened. Why? It seems that because IFAW didn't take this offer
in 1990, the Namibian seal industry has been allowed to grow in the
meantime, with ever increasing quotas. Does IFAW potentially have seal
blood on its hands?
Hugo:
Why IFAW refused that earlier deal needs to be addressed with them, as
they refuse to answer my questions. IFAW does have seal blood on its
hands. Three years later the industry invested $3.5 million in building
new seal processing factories, hiring more staff, developing omega-3
seal oil, claiming health capsules and seeking pup quotas that have
increased tenfold, from 9,000 to 85,000 pups. If we do not buy them out
this time, $100 million profits from the skins of endangered seals will
be invested in other animal cruelty industries.
13.7: What is the status of the other organizations that have been mentioned in this discussion, such as
Humane Society International (HSI),
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the
World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA)?
Hugo:
All have campaigned to end Namibia's seal hunt, all describe it as
extremely cruel and a threat to the conservation of the species and all
eventually supported my efforts to have the EU ban imports. All have
appealed for donations in this regard from the members. The Humane
Society alone has 11 million members. If each donated $1, this buyout
could happen today.
13.7: Is there any prospect of getting one major donor to just put up the $14 million?
Hugo:
If HSI asked its 11 million members to pledge $1 each or IFAW's members
pledged $5 each, then either these two or a combination could come up
with the buyout money very quickly. So yes, but to date they remain
inactive and silent on the issue. Even requests to ask the CEOs to
offer their supporters the option -- to each make up their own mind as
to how they want their donations spent -- has fallen on deaf ears.
There is a possibility of a donor such as
De Beers coming
forward. De Beers Executive Director Stephen Lussier has publicly
stated that the company is opposed to culling and wrote to the EU in
support of the ban, but only time will tell.
13.7: According
to the Atlantic Canadian Anti-Sealing Coalition, the Namibian seal hunt
is the second largest commercial seal hunt in the world. Or is it the
biggest -- according to your recent press release?
Hugo:
It is now the largest. Although Canada awards a larger quota on a seal
population -- six times larger -- it affects only 6% of the population
as seals of all ages can be killed, except nursing seal pups which are
banned from harvest. Namibia's sealing regulation requires sealers to
only kill nursing pups with a club -- no shooting (considered more
humane) is allowed. And the Namibian quota exceeds all surviving pups
after natural mortality is factored in.
This past sealing season
Canada killed 70,000 seals, and as the Namibian government claims that
sealers average 93% of their quota, this year's quota of 91,000 will
make the Namibian seal cull the largest in the world. Namibia is the
only country whose cull is 90% seal pups. It is the last country on
Earth to club nursing baby seals to death. Its seal imports were banned
in the United States as far back as 1972, due to the cruelty factor of
killing a nursing baby seal pup in a breeding ground.
13.7: The Namibian government says that the Cape fur seals are not endangered. Is this correct?
Hugo:
The preferred habitat of Cape fur seals is offshore islands.
Historically there were no mainland colonies. Sealing exterminated all
these island colonies, 98% of which has remained permanently extinct.
Twenty-three island colonies were exterminated due to sealing. So, from
this point, Cape fur seals are virtually extinct. The government
themselves stated in 1990 that the species was close to extinction.
The
fleeing, surviving seals fled to the mainland and this is where sealing
now takes place. So whilst there has been some recovery from almost
zero, none of the former colonies have repopulated.
The Namibian government claims a rating by the
International Union for Conservation of Nature
(IUCN) that rates Cape fur seals as not endangered (lower risk). This
has no legal status. Conversely, the South African government listed
Cape fur seals with the United Nations
Convention in Trade of Endangered Species
(CITES) in 1977 and the seals were given an Appendix II rating, which
states trade must be carefully controlled to prevent its extinction.
Namibia joined CITES in 1990. CITES is the only legally binding
conservation rating, to which 173 countries have signed. The rating of
the IUCN is meaningless, as it is based purely on one-sided, distorted
data supplied by the Namibian government.
The other fact is that
since 1994, this species has suffered several mass die-offs where all
the pups starved to death and a third to half of the adults died as
well. The last die-off admitted by the government was in 2006. In
addition, I personally filmed Namibia's largest seal colony, which had
just be subjected to the largest quota on record. It was completely
collapsed -- there was not a single seal left.
So whether you
look at habitat, legal obligation, conservation rating, the quota that
exceeds the living pups or the mass die-off from starvation due to
overfishing and collapsed fisheries off the coast of Namibia, the Cape
fur seals are most certainly endangered. They have been effectively
reduced as a population, relegated to a tiny area measuring 500m by
800m for the entire species.
13.7: The
Namibian government also says that the seals need to be culled because
they eat too many fish -- 900 tons worth, they claim -- negatively
impacting the Namibian fishing industry. What are your thoughts on this?
Hugo:
Hogwash and more hogwash. Namibia was once one of the most productive
fisheries in the world, with seals and fish sharing a unique natural
balance that had existed for 5 million years. In the late 1960s
commercial fisheries caught 1.5 million tons. Almost all of it went to
fishmeal for pet food and livestock feed, which is an unnatural protein
diet for these animals. The government did not then consider to cull
pets or livestock -- so why now seals? The 900-ton claim is itself
false, as seal diet consists of 50% non-commercial fish. So at the
most, the government should only be concerned with 450 tons of fish.
It
is the government or commercial fishing that should be culled, as the
fish quota is now zero from mismanaged overfishing -- not seals. And
pups do not eat solids or fish. So if this were true, why then does the
cull involve a 90% pup quota and actually exempt all fish-eating seals
of all age groups? The government has been culling seals even when it
had no population data (the first population survey being conducted in
1972), nor any means of quantifying seal consumption. It just sounds
like a good excuse, but it's not based on fact.
There is also
not a single scientific paper supporting this. In fact, the only
research by a leading professor funded by the government and the World
Bank in 1994 on the
hake/seal interaction showed that a seal cull would actually
negatively effect the commercial catch of the hake. Seals feed on the predatory hake, which preys on the commercial hake.
In
fact, South Africa believed the same, until it stopped in 1990, on the
same species, and after 19 years, has in fact seen the seal population
either remain stable or decline, as one would expect to occur in an
overfished, collapsed environment. It has been conclusively proven that
no intervention by mankind is needed to manage wild seal populations.
Nature does so adequately through pups washing off islands and
drowning, shark predation at sea and around colonies, jackal predation
on land (although this is unnatural) and factors such as lack of fish,
disease, heat and cold. These are all major -- and natural -- seal
killers.
13.7: How many people are employed by Namibia's seal hunt and how will they be affected if the seal hunt is ended for good?
Hugo:
Ninety-seven workers are employed part-time between July and December.
The two sealing concession holders have other business interests as
well. If the government continues with its annual cull, the seal
population will collapse -- as evidenced by the fact that sealers only
reached 25% of their quota last year. When it collapses completely, the
unskilled seal workers will have no way to earn money.
With the
Seal Alert-SA buyout, as part of the offer, funds will be reinvested in
Namibia in new industries whereby the sealers will be retrained and
reemployed for at least the next ten years. Or, if the government
accepts the Seal Alert-SA offer, I will retrain and redeploy the
sealers as seal protectors and colony monitors year-round.
13.7: Why has Canada's seal hunt received more worldwide press than the hunt in Namibia?
Hugo:
The answer is simple. Africans are poor by Western standards, and
therefore appealing to most who earn $1 a day can hardly fund
multimillion dollar anti-seal hunt campaigns. It's all about the money
and very little to do with conservation, cruelty or protection of a
species. It's animal politics.
13.7: You mentioned that the South African diamond giant De Beers disapproves of the seal hunt. How does it affect them?
Hugo:
De Beers should make the Cape fur seal its number one wildlife
conservation priority, because it owned the farm on which South African
sealers slaughtered well over 1.5 million seal pups between the 1970
and 1990. In a weird quirk, the De Beers restricted coastline initially
offered a safe sanctuary for the seals fleeing the islands, but as
their fleeing numbers swelled and more island habitats collapsed from
sealing, these mainland sanctuaries actually became death camps for the
seals. The same thing occurred in Namibia, although here De Beers only
leases the land from the government, but is in a 50/50 partnership with
the government in mining operations.
The De Beers Elizabeth mine
is only about 10 kilometers from the culling colonies of Wolf/Atlas
Bay. The mass die-offs reported in 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2002 and
2006 hit hardest in the south (the diamond-restricted area), and
unfortunately De Beers offered no assistance to help or rescue any of
these tens of thousands of dying seal babies on their beaches. This is
dishonorable, as it is their policy to restrict access to this area.
Therefore the obligation to offer help during those mass die-off years
was theirs alone, but they prevented public assistance because of their
restriction.
In a further quirk, the public is not allowed
access to the restricted area -- a vast area. To be granted access, the
public is not allowed to take in cameras or cellphones. Yet, daily
thugs of seal killers with clubs, knives and rifles can drive in and
out of the most restricted area in Africa simply because the government
gave them a permit to club seals. De Beers has never explained why they
never voiced concern to prevent this access, citing security risks.
After I questioned this sealer/De Beers relationship, De Beers did
publicly issue a letter saying De Beers is opposed to culling, and it
is believed that they did attempt to get Namibia to stop its cull. They
did ask the EU to include Cape fur seals in the EU ban, as the
anti-seal hunt movement had initially excluded Cape fur seals from the
ban.
In my opinion, De Beers has a wonderful opportunity to do
the right thing, and financially help Seal Alert-SA buy out the sealing
industry, partly because their head office in South Africa, a country
that has stopped seal culling, and partly because their major clients
in United States since 1972 and the EU recently have banned the
practice and imports due to the cruelty factor. It really is a case of
"bloody seal diamonds."
13.7: How did you first get interested in seal conservation and when did you start Seal Alert-SA?
Hugo:
I am not a conservationist. I do not believe in the word -- it's
meaningless. I am an investigator and my client just happens to be
seals -- not a human or corporation. I am investigating crimes against
seals. My first seal client, which awakened me, was an entangled seal
pup, ignored and left to suffer.
13.7: Can you describe this first client?
Hugo:
She was a female seal pup about 10 months old I named Sweety. Fishing
line had cut off both of her flippers to the bone. She couldn't swim or
hunt. Her entanglement, which would never biodegrade, was her tomb. She
was dying from thirst and hunger in a watery grave. Freeing that seal,
who was then too weak to swim away or have any energy to hunt taught me
my first lesson: Rescuing seals is not rescue until the seal leaves and
can survive on its own again in the wild. In fact, Sweety taught me a
unique way, in fact, that the only successful way to save seals is to
respect their freedom and work with them unconfined and free. Sweety in
a sense hired me and opened my eyes and to their centuries of
suffering. The plight of seals is actually in the unseen world that we
all live in.
13.7: What exactly does Seal Alert-SA do to stop the seal hunt?
Hugo:
The short answer is what doesn't it do? If you can think of it, I have
probably tried it and a whole lot more. Only time, lack of funding or
physical limitation or prioritizing already existing saved lives
prevents me moving quicker to end it.
13.7: How many people are actively working for Seal Alert-SA?
Hugo:
Probably thousands around the globe. Seal Alert-SA is Francois Hugo is
Cape fur seals is all of us. Seal Alert-SA has never had paid staff or
had an office. My work is done in the wild, on the Internet and in
meetings. We have no Web site, fundraising, PR or newsletter -- just
like-minded individuals coming together to achieve a common goal. I am
simply the physical saver of seals and the voice to mankind.
13.7: How important are donations to Seal Alert-SA?
Hugo:
In reality not very important, as I fund my own rescues and do not
exist because of donations. Many donation-based organizations need
donations first to then do the work. I work the other way around. I
just do the work or rescues and if and when a crossroad occurs, appeal
then for that specific solution and get like-minded partners to help.
This said, donations are very important as it means "many hands make
light work."
13.7: Do you work with other anti-sealing organizations?
Hugo:
I work with and against anybody who is involved with seals, good or
bad. My loyalty, cause and case is only to the seals. If people or
organizations are working positively towards the seals, I work with
them -- mostly in supplying all with data never before revealed. And in
regard to those people or organizations against seals, I expose,
question and attack.
13.7: It
seems that seal hunting has received more and more worldwide
condemnation recently -- from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's
remarks to the
EU ban on seal products to the United States Senate
resolution denouncing the Canadian seal hunt. But do bans really work? Even though there is an
international ban on commercial whaling, whales are still being slaughtered.
Hugo:
Bans are effective because they prevent complete species annihilation.
The greater the ban, the less annihilation. But equally it does little
to address the wrongs of the past. For example, banning seal-clubbing
on the mainland will not get seals back on their original habitat or
evolutionary path.
13.7: Do you feel that within Namibia, there is a growing opposition to seal hunting?
Hugo:
Yes, the very fact that the media in Namibia has been so supportive
says a million words, or the fact that the prime minister agreed to
meet me about the issue. It was probably the first time a prime
minister anywhere in the world has sat done with someone directly
campaigning against the government and had a chat. The buyout has seen
many Namibians pledge thousands of Namibian dollars to buyout the
sealers -- and that says everything.
13.7: You've
said that tourists who come to see the seal colonies do not realize
that the country also kills these seals hours before tourists arrive at
the colony to view them. So Namibia is profiting from both sides of the
issue, so to speak. Can the country transition fully towards seal
conservation if the seal hunt is shut down, and will that revenue make
up for the lost sealing revenue?
Hugo:
That is right. Sealers enter colony at 5:00 AM, kill baby seals, load
the dead pups in trucks and leave the colony by 9:00 AM. The government
then opens the colony at 10:00 AM to paying tourists. There are warning
signs that read, "Do not disturb the seal colony and help us to protect
this unique seal colony." Clearly the government is hiding its
seal-culling activities. Not a single travel Web site mentions the seal
cull. Blood on the beach or dead pups is blamed on jackals. The
Namibian government earns over $9 million a year from 100,000 tourists
paying to see seals in the wild. From the sealing industry it earns
$50,000. Should seal culls stop and the government allows seals to
return to the banned original islands, these islands would thrive,
increasing tourists' viewing pleasure, and could develop, for example,
shark cage diving around seal colonies, which in South Africa generates
over $200 million a year.
13.7: If
Seal Alert-SA is able to buy out the Namibian sealing industry and you
shut it down, what do you plan to do with the two seal processing
plants and have you thought about keeping them up as a museum so that
people can remember the horror of this bloody industry?
Hugo:
Exactly, they would be turned into a museum, will all funds raised
going to proper seal conservation and protection and research. The
Namibian sealing industry in their offer have undertaken to make this a
reality, if the deal is concluded, and would in fact contribute to the
museum.
13.7: If this
buyout works, could it provide a blueprint for future buyouts of
similar industries and prove that conservation can be taken privately,
outside the control of governments? If so, that's a new kind of
market-based conservation initiative.
Hugo:
Hunting and mainstream conservationists have always had the "If it
pays, it stays on Earth" approach. The only difference is that the
words "hunt" and "kill" are replaced with "free" and "no-kill." Private
business has already taken the control away from the government to
hunt. It's time we turn this around to not hunt. We forget nature is
all around us. Water, food and even conversation used to be free. Now
we pay for calls, buy food and even bottled water. So why not pay for
seals to be wild and free instead of dead and skinned? We franchise
soda water like Coke. Why not franchise seals? Companies are taking out
DNA patents on seeds and plants. Why not commercialize seals in a
positive way?
I have always believed companies should list on
stock exchanges offering returns in life, where investors invest in
life and their own future. Had such companies done so, they would have
owned the rights to seal viewing, shark cage diving and seal
conservation and protection, generating millions in profits without any
need to kill, offering a business and a final alternative to killing.
It's already there, profitable and proven, and carries little or no
overhead or staff, forever growing. It's just currently fragmented. I
have never understood why these big anti-seal hunt groups have never
invested in eco-tourism.
13.7: It
seems that the Namibian government is happy to continue the seal hunt
as long as it is lucrative. Is there any opposition within the
government to end the hunt permanently?
Hugo: That you will have to ask them, for I have seen no evidence of any support to end it.
13.7: The majority of Canadians oppose the seal hunt in their country. What does the average Namibian think of the hunt in theirs?
Hugo: Namibia is the least populated country on Earth living in the oldest desert. Most didn't even know about it until I told them.
13.7: If the Namibian seal hunt comes to end for good, what will you do?
Hugo: Work on getting seals back to their original habitat -- islands. And getting these areas unbanned.
13.7: What is your most memorable moment working with seals?
Hugo: Saving of the life of my first seal.
13.7: Where do you want to be in 10 years?
Hugo:
Enjoying seal colonies living on islands, with the seas teaming with
fish, watching the baby pups grow up safe, free and secure.
13.7: What is the most important lesson you have learned from seals?
Hugo: Love.
Seal Alert-SA was established in 1999 in South Africa by seal rescuer Francois Hugo as a direct hands-on organization to address the imbalances, cruelty and abuse that has plagued seals for over 600 years. Seal Alert-SA's primary roles are investigation, rescue and in-the-wild rehabilitation, free of all forms of confinement.
13.7 BILLION YEARS was launched in 2008 by New York-based artist, writer and environmental activist Reynard Loki as an armchair activist blog "covering daily news on conservation, natural science, the environment and animal rights -- with quick and easy ways to get informed and involved."
Visit the Seal Alert-SA blog at
http://sealalertsa.wordpress.com.
- Sign a Care 2 petition boycotting tourism in Namibia until the country bans their seal hunt
- Sign
a Seal Alert-SA petition to un-ban seals from a UNESCO World Heritage
Island in South Africa to provide them with a safe location to breed
and live away from the clubbing in Namibia
Authors Website: http://momentech.blogspot.com
Authors Bio:Reynard Loki is a New York-based artist, writer and editor. He is the environment and food editor at AlterNet.org, a progressive news website. He is also the co-founder of MomenTech, a New York-based experimental production studio whose projects exploring cosmology, post-humanism, neo-nomadism and futurism have been presented around the world, including Center for Book Arts (New York, NY); DUMBO Arts Festival (Brooklyn, NY) Eastern Bloc Center for New Media and Interdisciplinary Art (Montreal), ITCH Magazine, School of Literature, Language and Media, Wits University (Johannesburg, South Africa); 48 Stunden Neukölln Festival (Berlin); Daet New Media Festival (Philippines); 3///3 (Athens, Greece), Fotanian Open Studio (Hong Kong) and Magmart International Video Festival (Naples). Reynard is a contributing author of Biomes and Ecosystems: An Encyclopedia (Salem Press, 2013). His writing has also appeared in Salon, Truthout, Justmeans, EcoWatch, GreenBiz, Resilience.org and Social Earth.