This is an interview of Captain Watson I had taken for YouthLeader magazine an year ago.
“You have not lived until you have found something worth dying for”~Captain Paul Watson
Paul Franklin Watson A.K.A Captain Paul Watson is a man on a mission- to save the planet and its oceans. Born on December 2, 1950, Paul Watson is a Canadian animal rights and environmental activist, who founded and is president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (commonly known as Sea Shepherd, SS or SSCS), a direct action group devoted to marine conservation.
The Toronto native joined a Sierra Club protest against nuclear testing in 1969. He was one of the youngest co-founders of Greenpeace, crewed and skippered for it, and later was a board member. Watson argued for a strategy of direct action that conflicted with the Greenpeace interpretation of non-violence, was ousted from the board in 1977, and subsequently left the organization. That same year, he formed Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. The Antarctic anti-whaling campaign of the group is the subject of a reality show, Whale Wars (aired on the Discovery Network).
He also promotes veganism, voluntary human population control, and a biocentric, rather than anthropocentric, world view. In January 2008 Paul Watson was named by The Guardian as one of its "50 people who could save the planet" for the work of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
Siddhant Sadangi of YouthLeader Global gets a chance to talk to Captain Watson.
SS: Can you tell the readers something about yourself?
CW: Not exactly sure where to start with this question. I was the co-founder of the Greenpeace Foundation in 1972 and the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in 1977. Presently I am the head of Sea Shepherd International in command of three ships and a crew of international volunteers. I was born in 1950. I am unmarried but I have a daughter that I love immensely. I have no plans to ever retire from what I have done all of my life – activism in defense of our oceans.
SS: You were the youngest co-founder of Greenpeace. What inspired you in this direction at such an early age?
CW: I began rescuing beavers from traps when I was eleven years old. I was raised in an Eastern Canadian fishing village. I joined up with the people who organized the Don’t Make a Wave Committee in 1969 when I was 18 to oppose nuclear weapons testing in the Alaskan Aleutian islands. I was concerned that the tests were taking place in a wildlife preserve. In 1972, the Don’t Make a Wave Committee became the Greenpeace Foundation. In 1975, I had an experience that changed my life when a harpooned Sperm whale in agony could have taken my life but did not so and thus I feel a debt to that whale and to all whales to do what I can to save as many of them as I can while I live.
SS: Could you provide a brief outline of your purpose, mission and vision?
CW: Our objective is to uphold international conservation law in accordance with the principles of the United Nations World Charter for Nature. Sea Shepherd is an anti-poaching organization. We also have a message and that is if we can’t prevent the diminishment of biodiversity in the world’s oceans the oceans will die and if the oceans die – we die. Humanity will go extinct.
SS: What is your primary approach to promoting this concept?
CW: Direct intervention against illegal activities exploiting marine wildlife by utilizing aggressive non-violent tactics. We intervene against poachers and physically block their activities. We act in accordance with the United Nation World Charter for Nature that allows for us to intervene as a non-governmental organization to uphold international conservation law. We act aggressively but non-violently and we act within the boundaries of both the law and practicality, utilizing classical martial strategies as outlined by Sun Tzu and Miyamota Musashi, and media strategies as outlined by Marshall McLuhan.SS: What inspires you (and motivates you to inspire others) to venture out there with this concept?
CW: What inspires me is the knowledge that humanity is destroying biodiversity and thus undermining the life support system of this planet. I believe we all have a moral obligation to defend our eco-systems from diminishment and destruction and that we owe future generations the right to a healthy and diverse environment. We have no right to rob them of the rich treasures that this planet contains just to satisfy our selfish material desires. What inspires me is the beauty and the magnificence of Planet Earth and especially our oceans.
SS: Congratulations on the grand success of Operation No Compromise. What should we be looking forward to now?
CW: We will be prepared to return to the Southern Ocean in December if the Japanese whaling fleet returns. Before that however we will be tackling bluefin tuna poachers in the Mediterranean in June and defending pilot whales in the Faeroe Islands in July through September with our vessels Steve Irwin and Gojira. Our ship Bob Barker is being prepared to oppose poaching operations in the territorial waters of Palau in accordance with an agreement we recently signed with the Republic of Palau to do so.
SS: In the light of the recent tragedy in Japan, do you think that their Whaling fleet will be active this year? Or the Taiji slaughter for that matter?
CW: The killing at Taiji continues. The tsunami did not impact Taiji much except to dash some of the captive dolphins to death on the rocks because they could not escape. Fortunately the tsunami destroyed 9 of the 14 dolphin harpoon boats in the Northern Iwate Prefecture. The government of Japan should have more important priorities now than subsidizing the whaling fleet but they are a stubborn bunch and they may try to return to the Southern Ocean so we must be prepared for them to do so.
SS: Can you tell us about some significant challenges you have faced in your projects?
CW: Our challenges have always been lack of resources to do what we needed to do. However every year we have gotten stronger and more effective and I am optimistic that we will continue to be more effective.
SS: Which campaign has been your personal favorite till now? Why?
CW: My favourite campaign was and always will be the 1979 hunt for the pirate whaler Sierra. I found her, disabled her and sank her and permanently ended her illegal career. It was my first real dangerous campaign and it was completely successful. It was the campaign that became the foundation for all other campaigns that followed.
SS: You have many quotable quotes to your credit, which one is your personal favorite?
CW: “If the fish, the whales, the turtles and plankton are diminished and destroyed, the oceans will die and if the oceans die, humanity dies. We cannot live on this planet with a dead ocean.”
SS: What would you like to share about the success of your campaigns?
CW: Our success with Sea Shepherd lies in the fact that we are driven by passionate and courageous volunteers from around the world. I could not pay professionals to do what these men and women do for free. My volunteers both onboard our ships and onshore are the reason we have been and we will continue to be successful.
SS: Anybody whom you would give credit for supporting (inspiring) you at the very outset?
CW: My greatest inspiration was a whale named Mocha Dick (Moby Dick) who fought back against the whalers and was never defeated. I was also inspired by Captain James I. Waddell of the Confederate raider Shenandoah. This man helped to destroy the Yankee whaling fleet in 1865 and he did so without losing a single crewmember and without killing a single whaler. He was an inspiration for my aggressive non-violence approach. I was also inspired as a young man by Canadian author Farley Mowat who today is the International Chair for Sea Shepherd. Also by Archie Bellamy a.k.a. Grey Owl for his efforts to protect beavers in Canada almost a century ago. Other inspirational people in my life have been Dian Fossey, David Suzuki, Margaret Mead, Marshall McLuhan, Robert Hunter, and Miyomoto Musashi. My daughter Lilliolani has also been an inspiration to me allowing me to see and to understand that what we do now we do for generations unborn.
SS: One person whose work you deeply support?
CW: It is difficult to name just one person but I can say that there are a growing number of passionate, committed and dedicated young activists who are making a difference every day all around this planet. I suppose if I must name one person, it would be Emily Hunter the daughter of the late Robert Hunter who has taken up the work that was regrettably ended with her father’s untimely death. She is an inspiration precisely because she had the courage and the passion to pick up her father’s fallen banner and she has the imagination to carry that banner forward into the future. SS: Any other interests/hobbies you have which you would like to share with us?
CW: My passion is poetry.
SS: Something you regret for not having done?
CW: There are many challenges I would have like to have taken on but lack of resources prevented me from doing so. However I have no regrets, I have done what I have been able to do with the resources available to me.
SS: Any breakthroughs or achievements which you would like to share?
CW: Between 1979 and the present day, our campaigns have saved the lives of thousands of whales, tens of thousands of dolphins, hundreds of thousands of seals and millions of fish. These achievements are what sustain me and this is what keeps me energized.
SS: Are you optimistic about capability of the present YOUTH to solve the current ecological crisis?
CW: It is the only thing that I am optimistic about. It will be the passion, the imagination and the courage of the young people of the 21st century to find a path out of chaos to a world where we can co-exist in harmony with the natural world.
SS: What would be the most significant practice a person can adopt in his daily life to further your cause?
CW: To adopt a vegan or vegetarian diet and to live organically and in accordance with the three basic laws of ecology.
SS: What would be your message for the youngsters reading this?
CW: My message would be to never let go of your idealism and to trust in your imagination and allow your passions to guide you towards the realization of your dreams. Imagination plus passion plus courage is the roadmap to success in any endeavor.
To know more about Captain Watson, the Sea Shepherd and its crew, visit its official website www.seashepherd.org, where you can join crucial campaigns for saving whales, dolphins and seals. Join their newsletter for updates on important campaigns. Online campaigns can make a big difference today, since many governments are trying with all the means to keep the global public’s eyes off their sick, gruesome activities – like the dolphin killings in Japan and Denmark. Oh yes, some scandinavian nations are no less barbarous! Entire ocean bays are filled with blood when they indulge in their festivities of massacring hundreds of whales and dolphins! Oscar winning documentary The Cove documents the worst of Japan.
Interview re-posted with the permission of YouthLeader Magazine. YouthLeader magazine reserves all rights to this article.Read the original article on YouthLeader magazine http://www.global1.youth-leader.org/2011/08/captain-paul-watson-skippering-earth%e2%80%99s-navy/
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