Mark Terry

Mark Terry is a Canadian scholar, explorer, and filmmaker. He is a professor at the Faculty of Environmental Studies York University.

Mark Terry on the RT television news program In Context.

Education

He received his PhD from York University in Toronto defending his dissertation titled The Geo-Doc: Remediating the Documentary Film as an Instrument of Social Change on January 18, 2019.

Career

In 2009, Terry produced and directed the documentary feature film The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning (2009)[1] and was invited to screen it at COP15, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Copenhagen that year.[2] The film was screened 25 times at the two-week conference and viewed online 60,000 times by delegates. The screenings established a relationship with Terry and the Communications Department of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that continues to this day.[3] He was asked to produce a second film on Arctic research for the subsequent climate summit, COP16 in Cancun. The film he made was called The Polar Explorer (2010) and profiled the research team from ArcticNet during a crossing of the Northwest Passage, the first film to document a complete crossing.[4] The film was once again screened 25 times at the conference and was included in a policy-writing session as a resource. The resulting resolution - Enhanced Action on Adaptation: Section II, Subsection 25 of the Cancun Accord - was co-authored by Terry.[5]

While the medium of the documentary film was welcomed as a communications tool by the UN, a demand for more visible evidence of climate change was made. To accommodate this, Terry conceived of the Geo-Doc to provide multiple documentary shorts of climate research from around the world on one digital map. The project was an extension of the Youth Climate Report, a curation project conceived by Terry and Toronto-based lawyer John Kelly in 2011.[6] The project called for the global community of youth to produce short video films of climate research in their home countries. From 2011 to 2015, the best films were edited together to create a feature-length documentary film that was screened for delegates attending the annual UN climate summits. In 2015, the Geo-Doc format was introduced at the Paris climate summit. It was adopted by the UNFCCC the following year as a partner program to showcase the best videos submitted to the Global Youth Video Competition.[7] The Youth Climate Report GIS Project continues to this day.[8]

Filmography

Mark Terry has contributed to 66 film and television productions as a producer, director, writer, publicist, actor, and even stunt driver. As an actor, he is perhaps best known as the Alien Pilot in Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict (1997-2002) produced by Atlantis Alliance Communications and distributed by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment. He is best known as a documentary filmmaker, specializing in environmental themes. In particular, many of his films made for PBS in the US and CBC in Canada focus on climate change research in the polar regions: The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning (2009),[9] The Polar Explorer (2010), Polar (2011), A Climate of Change (2014), Antarctica in Decline (2017), and The Changing Face of Iceland (2020). In 2011, Terry was honored by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television with its Gemini Humanitarian Award for his dedicated lifetime service to environmental filmmaking. [10][11]

He has won 30 international awards for his film work, including back-to-back Audience Choice Awards at the American Conservation Film Festival for The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning in 2010 and The Polar Explorer in 2011.[12]

Explorer

As an explorer, Mark Terry was made a Fellow of The Explorers Club in 2010 and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society in 2012.[13] He has sailed all three of the major passages that connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans: the Drake Passage, the Panama Canal and the Northwest Passage. He was commissioned by the Explorers Museum in Ireland to lead a pennant expedition through the Mindo Cloudforest of the Andes Mountains in Ecuador in 2016.

In 2010, the Canadian Chapter of The Explorers Club awarded Terry its highest honor, the Stefansson Medal, for his "unique contributions to documenting the natural world".[4][14] In 2013, the Governor-General of Canada decorated Terry with Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for his "international humanitarian service" informing the environmental policymakers of the United Nations through his documentary film projects.[15] In 2015, Canadian Geographic Magazine named Terry one of Canada's "Top 100 Greatest Explorers". [16]

Research work

Mark Terry's recent research has been published by Palgrave Macmillan in the book The Geo-Doc: Geomedia, Documentary Film, and Social Change (2020). He is currently the Chair of the ADERSIM Arctic Group, the Advanced Disaster, Emergency, and Rapid Response Simulation program at York University in Toronto, Canada. He is also an Associate of the UNESCO Chair in Reorienting Education through Sustainability. He continues his research in digital media and humanitarian communications as a postdoctoral fellow at the Dahdaleh Institute of Global Health Research and the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University in Toronto.[17] He also serves as a professor of environmental studies teaching the course ENVS 1010: Introduction to Environmental Documentaries.[18] As a lecturer, Terry teaches at Ryerson University in Toronto.

In 2016, York University honored Terry's innovative work with the Geo-Doc with the President's Sustainability Leadership Award. [19] Terry has given more than 80 lectures at universities and academic conferences throughout the world presenting research papers on the subjects of documentary film theory, digital media, and climate change research in the polar regions. He has also given two TED Talks on the subjects of Antarctica and the Arctic.

References
  1. Heard, Christopher. "'The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning'". TheGATE.ca.
  2. "Canadian film to be shown during UN climate meeting". CTVNews. 18 August 2009.
  3. "Newsroom : "Antarctica Challenge" Spotlights Climate Change Impacts". Government of Ontario.
  4. "People You Should Know: Polar Explorer Mark Terry". CityNews.
  5. "Yukon Research Centre, Arts Centre present evening of films on climate change". Yukon College.
  6. admin (2015-07-27). "Bringing science to UN climate change conferences". Canadian Geographic.
  7. Nuttall, Nick (October 19, 2016). "See Inspiring Climate Action - Entries to Global Youth Video Competition". United Nations Climate Change.
  8. "Lights, Camera, Santiago de Chile!". UNFCCC.
  9. "Copenhagen's Climate Change Circus". Point of View Magazine.
  10. "CTV's Robertson to receive special Gemini award". CP24. 2011-08-10.
  11. "Gemini Award organizers tap special honourees".
  12. Festival, American Conservation Film. "The Polar Explorer – American Conservation Film Festival".
  13. "Fellows Journal Spring 2017". The Royal Canadian Geographical Society.
  14. "Exclusivos Eco-Cruceros a la Antártida y el Polo Norte". Viajaratope.com.
  15. "Filmmaker Wins Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal For International Humanitarian Service". UNEP.
  16. "Mark Terry - Canada's Greatest Explorers". Canadian Geographic.
  17. "Mark Terry". Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research.
  18. "York University Courses Website - Courses Schedule". Yorku.ca.
  19. cdouris. "York University celebrates its sustainability leaders". Faculty of Graduate Studies.
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