Robert Lorne Hunter (October 13, 1941 – May 2, 2005) was a Canadian environmentalist, journalist, author and politician. He was a member of the Don't Make a Wave Committee in 1969, and a co-founder of Greenpeace in 1971 and its first president. He led the first on-sea anti-whaling campaigns in the world, against Russian and Australian whalers, which helped lead to the ban on commercial whaling. He campaigned against nuclear testing, the Canadian seal hunt and later, climate change with his book Thermageddon: Countdown to 2030. He was named by Time as one of the "Eco-Heroes" of the 20th century. Biography Born in St. Boniface, Manitoba, Hunter's career in journalism began in the 1960s at the Winnipeg Tribune and the Vancouver Sun, where he focused on the counterculture as well as environmental issues. Beginning in 1988, he worked as a commentator and reporter for Toronto's Citytv and, since its launch, its all-news sister channel CP24. He created many documentaries about Canada's north that are still often aired on CP24 during off-peak hours. He was also the longtime "Enviro" columnist in Toronto's eye weekly. Environmental activism Robert Hunter was on the first expedition of the Don't Make a Wave Committee in 1971, titled Greenpeace I. This was a halibut seiner by the name of Phyllis Cormack, chartered to travel to Amchitka in an unsuccessful attempt to halt the underground nuclear bomb test codenamed Cannikin by the United States military beneath the island of Amchitka, Alaska. In 1975 Robert Hunter led the Greenpeace expedition against the Soviet whaling fleet, along with lifelong friend and activist Paul Watson and Patrick Moore. The expedition chartered the Phyllis Cormack again, and pioneered using inflatable zodiacs as a shield between the harpoon and the whale. He participated on many Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society campaigns, and was on the advisory board for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society for several years. A Sea Shepherd vessel was named for him after his death. Politics Hunter surprised many when he entered politics as a candidate for the Ontario Liberal Party in a 2001 provincial by-election in Beaches—East York. Hunter's environmentalism had led many to assume that his politics were more in line with the New Democratic Party or the Greens, and he had frequently criticized Liberal politicians in his columns. The by-election campaign became bitter in its final days when sections of Hunter's 1988 travelogue On the Sky