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When she was 25 and working as a researcher
for National Geographic Magazine, Jennifer Hile decided to ditch her apartment,
quit her desk job, and sell everything she owned, abandoning her safety net to
explore the world she'd been reading about at work. For the next year,
she co-captained a 25-foot sloop from Singapore up through SE Asia,
across the Indian Ocean to the Middle East, up the north coast of Africa,
winding up in the Mediterranean.
Journalism has been Jennifer's excuse to explore and document the beauty of
this endangered planet ever since.
After docking the boat, Jennifer spent a few years focused on Southeast Asia.
In Thailand, she witnessed the phajaan ritual where young elephants are "broken"
for work; they were caged, beaten, and starved as domestic elephants are all over Asia.
Jen produced, wrote, and hosted Vanishing Giants, a one-hour documentary chronicling
the experience for National Geographic Channel's Living Wild series.
The program was nominated for Emmy for Best Science/Nature documentary, and also won
the Genesis Award for Best Cable Documentary and a CINE Golden Eagle award.
After spending four months in Borneo Jen produced/wrote/hosted Borneo on the Brink
for National Geographic to explore why experts fear wild orangutans could be extinct
in just ten years. Watching giant rafts of illegally cut trees getting dragged out
of Borneo's national parks, one of the last habitats of the orangutan, left Jen
wondering where all the timber was going. It turns out the U.S buys tropical wood
without any safeguards about where it's cut. As a result, companies manufacture
things like futons and salad tongs from Borneo's ancient rainforests,
drastically hastening the doom of the orangutans.
Jen spent another two months in the rainforests of western New Guinea, in the isolated
Asmat region, where malarial swamps and jungle surround the highest mountains in
Southeast Asia. New Guinea's untouched lumber and minerals are now attracting
developers who've already torn up rainforests in other parts of the world.
In order to stave off encroachment and prevent the destruction of their
communities, the indigenous Asmat are formally mapping their land for the
first time in hope of gaining ownership to a forest where they've lived for
thousands of years. National Geographic On Assignment broadcast Jen's
documentary, Hidden World of the Asmat.
And in Cambodia, she chronicled the training of a special police force devoted to
combating the country's rampant illegal wildlife trade, and then rode along on
several raids in Phnom Penh. The plundering of Cambodia's natural resources is
hindering the government's ability to start rebuilding the country. The resulting
documentary Jen produced/wrote/hosted called Hunting the Hunters was also for
National Geographic On Assignment.
Next was a month in the Galapagos Islands examining how a burgeoning human
population is impacting the surrounding marine reserve - best illustrated by a
a fishing line covered with dead and dying sharks that the under-funded and outgunned
Galapagos Park Staff found while Jennifer was out on patrol. The demand for shark
fin soup in China is putting incredible pressure on places even as remote as the
Galapagos. Also for the National Geographic Channel, Jennifer produced/wrote/hosted
Patrolling Paradise.
Jennifer's passion for sharks then led to a project with WildAid, producing and
writing two non-profit documentaries commissioned for China's CCTV (Chinese public
television) about the devastating effects rising demand for shark fin soup is
having on the world's shark population. This was a rare opportunity to broadcast
the issue to a Chinese audience, and it got a boost when Jennifer helped organize
a press conference during which renowned basketball star Yao Ming renounced shark
fin soup because of its impact on shark populations.
Jennifer also produced/wrote/hosted a 20-minute piece on Iraqi translators who
risked their lives to work with U.S. forces after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
And yet, as Jen showed in a documentary for World Report on HDNet, which profiled
refugees in four countries, many of our Iraqi allies find themselves among the
growing Iraqi refugee population, largely ignored by the US and desperately hoping
the efforts of a band of activists and former soldiers can help them reach safety.
More recently, for a series about the ocean on exhibit in the Smithsonian Museum,
Jennifer hiked through mangroves in Belize; eavesdropped on whales in the Pacific;
and studied the impacts of global warming on ocean acidification, among other things.
The resulting 11 documentary shorts Jennifer produced and wrote about the ocean's
endangered animals and habitats are exhibited in the Smithsonian Museum's new
Ocean Hall.
Jen's articles and photographs have appeared in: National Geographic Magazine,
The Los Angeles Times, Salon, New York Times News Syndicate, National Geographic.com,
National Geographic Kids, Wildlife Conservation Magazine, Grist, Cruising World,
Sailing, Sport Diver, and others. She also co-authored "End of the Line," a WildAid
report on the global shark crisis.
Her photographs are featured in the book, "Elephants and Ethics: Towards a Morality of
Co-existence," published by John Hopkins University Press, and have been shown at the
Half King in New York City. She gave a talk at the opening of the Half King exhibition,
and has also spoken at the Soho House and the Explorer's Club in Manhattan, the Fovea
Photo Gallery in Beacon, New York, at the National Geographic Society in Washington D.C,
and at the International Wildlife Festival in Montana.
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