Professor
Francis Hallé was born in Seine-Port on 15 April 1938.
He has been a sailing instructor in Glénan, well before he became a biologist.
With a degree from the Sorbonne and the University of Abidjan, his scientific specialities -tropical botany and the analysis of tree structure - have led him to visit all the forests that lie on the equator. His research has necessarily brought him to the observation that they are disappearing because of overuse of the wood and uncontrolled clearing for agricultural reasons.
One of his key motivations is to prevent the ecological disaster that follows deforestation, already visible in many tropical countries - Haiti, Nigeria, Madagascar, Malaysian peninsular, North Queensland, etc.
Pilot
Dany Cleyet-Marrel was born in Lyon, 11 August 1948.
Passionate about journeys and ballooning, he has combined the two by going on many expeditions with hot air balloons. After having achieved the first flight over Mont Blanc, he has been involved with crossing the Sahara, Spitzberg and Australia, and realised very quickly that hot air balloons are a marvellous engine for discovery and a fantastic cinematographic tool.
He is a seasoned traveller and a practical person, very sensitive to ecological problems: thus he did not hesitate to lend his own hot air balloon for the operation in 1986, and it was he who designed the first Canopy Raft used in that year.
He has a decided taste for shooting films and has many friends in the world of the cinema; he is the inventor of the Ciné- bubble, a motorised, dirigible hot air balloon that enables him to accompany cameramen on sites that are difficult to access, so they can make some acrobatic shots. He is well known for his part in shooting "Peuple migrateur".
Architect
Gilles Ebersolt was born in Nantes on 23 May 1957.
Of his contribution to work on the canopy, he himself says it is a search for poetry. "I like to go boating. Why should sailing only be accessible to sailors? I wanted to discover new media; water is a medium, the ground and the air are also media. Trees must become the media of sailing". He was 25 years old when this idea of sailing on the trees came to him; and at that time he imagined a sort of enormous pneumatic sledge capable of hurtling down wooded slopes.
In everything he does, there is a comic and experimental side. Is it from the juxtaposition of a "traditional French" education and an eccentric predisposition that he derives his flash of genius?
He is also the inventor of the Icos (Independent Canopy Observatory System) and the Sledge.
