Activism and Arrest: The Story of Captain Paul Watson

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Big news out of conservation, Captain Paul Watson has been

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arrested outside, I believe it's Greenland or

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Iceland, I forget where. That's not really important, but we're gonna

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talk more about a follow-up to a story that I talked about on

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Friday, the last episode, where we talked about how

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activism can get you arrested, and you may not like

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the results from your activism, and will that stop

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you from doing any kind of activism? It's

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a really interesting question that I want to explore again today by talking

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about Captain Paul Watson. If you don't know who he is, we're going to

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talk about who he is, what he did in the past, and

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how it's haunting him in the future. And asking the question, does

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karma come back to kick you in the butt? We're going to talk about that on today's episode

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of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey,

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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm

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your host, Andrew Lewin. This is a podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how

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you can speak up for the ocean, what you can do to live for a better ocean by

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taking action. Now, in today's episode, we're gonna be diving more

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into a story that I talked about last episode, where we

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talked about activism and saying, look, is it really worth the

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cost? For some people, it is. And for a guy like

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Dr., or Doctor, a guy like Captain Paul Watson, It

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has been the cost. It has been worth the cost. He

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is a guy who has, since the 70s, not only

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created two of sort of the most notable organizations

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in conservation in the world, internationally, but

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he's also, you know, been notoriously vilified

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in the media and just law in general and

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in specific countries like Japan. And Japan's been

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after him for a long time. This is the second time that I've known that

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he's been arrested and trying to be extradited to Japan to

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be like, hey, you know what? We want him. We want to

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put him in trial. We want to put him on trial. We want to make sure that he goes to

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jail so that he doesn't interfere with whaling because he interfered with whaling

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for so many years. So we're going to talk a little bit

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about Dr. I keep calling him Dr. Captain Paul Watson.

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He's kind of been a guy that, you know, people either

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love him or they hate him. It's a really, he's been a really interesting

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personality within the conservation world. It

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started off, I've talked about him before on this podcast, but

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it's been a while, so I'm gonna give you a little bit of a background on

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him from what I know. This is a little bit more of a, I'm

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gonna guess like a little bit of a rant, more of just like my

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opinion on uh... captain paul watson what what

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he's done and answer the actions that have been taken against him it's

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a little bit of like a back-and-forth i'm a guy who likes to see both sides of

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of the issue and present both sides of the issue and

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and of course i want to know your opinion you know this is something that

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you know you look at a

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man like him, a guy like him just being like, hey, look, I would

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want to do everything possible. Here are my values in terms of conservation. This

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is what I want to see. And then I'm going to do everything possible, including

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using a form of violence in a

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way to be able to achieve that. But over time, be

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a little bit successful in what he was

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able to do, but also offend a lot of people, ostracize

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a lot of people, and pretty much, he's

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on the wrong side of a lot of people, the bad side of a lot of people, including countries

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like Japan. So we're gonna talk a little bit about that. He started Greenpeace, folks.

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He was one of the founders of Greenpeace, and he started Greenpeace as an activism

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So this is, we know Greenpeace. I grew

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up in the 80s and 90s. I saw the big protests

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against oil, big protests against the fossil fuel industry in

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the 80s and 90s, protests against hunting, protests against

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seal hunting that happened in Canada that I used to see on the news. I

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still see it. You see protests happening everywhere,

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all over the world. It was international and it was aggressive. you

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know, not violent in the way that I like that I've ever remembered, but

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it was also in your face. It disrupt a lot

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of things. And Greenpeace still does really interesting protests.

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You know, right now, deep sea mining is the big issue. And

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we have I've covered you know, topics where, you know,

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episodes where we've seen, you know, Greenpeace activists

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and Greenpeace staff members go on deep sea mining

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boats, like in Normandy, not Normandy, sorry, in

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Norway, and just be like, hey, you know what, like, we're

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gonna protest and have like, against anti-sea exploration

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protest signs up there trying to stop people from

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doing deep sea mining. And they used to do it against fur, they

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used to do it against a lot of other things. this continues to

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happen. Like they're still an activism organization, but they've changed

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over time. They now work with governments on policy actions.

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They will still do activism, but they will also go

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into policy. They will also look at science. They will also

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look at white papers and do campaigns to

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make you aware of what's happening in the ocean and on land,

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but also like the major things that are happening and what they're against. And

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to be honest, they still kind of follow what Paul Watson

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and the other founders really started in terms of like we don't want

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hunting, we don't want animal cruelty, we don't want you

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know the extraction of resources in deep

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sea like in the deep sea as well as other places and so we're

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going to do everything we can including protests but also working

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with governments to make sure that there are policies in place to

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stop this stuff from happening. So they went from an activism organization to

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more of a, hey, we're still gonna do the activism, we still don't

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love what you do, but we're also gonna wanna work with you so that you

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can get policy in place. Because they see that's how change is

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also made. It's not just getting the government's attention or

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a government's attention or somebody's attention in a private business,

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but it's also working with those stakeholders to say, hey,

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we need to do something about it. And whether you agree with it or not, That's

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fine. Paul Watson did not agree with the way they were changing. He

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saw the writing on the wall. I think he got ousted from Greenpeace,

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which he helped found. And then he started Sea

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Shepherd. Sea Shepherd was more of his organization. He

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founded it. It's based on him. His name's all over it. When

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you think of Sea Shepherd, you think of Captain Paul Watson. He's been

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on TV shows. He's been on the news. He is

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Sea Shepherd. He started whale wars, there

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was a TV show, and essentially Sea Shepherd will go out, they

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will have their own boats. They will go out into the, for

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a while, they were going out to the Southern Ocean, near Antarctica, and

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they would stop the Japanese whaling fleet from whaling. Now,

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to go back on it, the International Whaling Commission, they

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put a moratorium on whale hunting back in

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the 80s. Japan was like, no way, a couple of other countries, like

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Norway and Denmark, they said, no way, we're not doing it,

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we're gonna continue to hunt. and they continue to hunt. So

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Sea Shepherd's like, we're not gonna allow you to do that, so we're gonna take our boats,

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we're gonna get in your way, we might bump you a little bit, and we're gonna get

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in your way, and we're gonna make your life a living hell. So they

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would battle, they literally had whale wars, and that was a TV show,

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it was almost like a reality show, a news reality show,

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documenting what the Sea Shepherd would do. They'd

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have boats of volunteers, not necessarily marine biologists, some of them might

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have been marine biologists, I don't know, There were a lot of stories that came out

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of those ships. There were a lot of good stories, there were a lot of bad stories as well. I'm

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not gonna go into it because they're all allegations. I don't know exactly

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what happened, but I have heard some bad things that happened on those ships.

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Regardless, they put themselves in harm's way. They

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used some violence to bump boats, to get in the way

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of, I think what they would try and do is if a

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whaling ship was after a whale, they would try and harpoon it. What the

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Sea Shepherd ships would do is they would get in the way. And if they had to

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cut close in terms of actually bump the boat, they would actually

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bump the boat. And then that's what would happen. The

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boat could be damaged. There were a couple of Sea Shepherd boats that were sunk. I

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don't think anybody ever passed away from it, thank God. Or

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I'm sure there were some bumps and bruises and some people that were hurt, but still very dangerous.

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Putting people's lives in danger on both sides of the issue, which

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you never want to see. That's something that personally I don't agree

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with. but at some point when you

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see countries disobeying moratoriums like international agreed

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upon moratoriums and it's in the high seas there's no

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law at the time for the high seas there's now a high seas treaty that hopefully will

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be ratified by a lot of countries and it's slowly being ratified by

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different countries canada hasn't even ratified yet which i don't know why but

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regardless You know, they didn't have it back then. They didn't have it in

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the 2000s, the 90s. And so what Sea Shepherd did was go out

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there and make life a living hell for

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the Japanese whaling fleet. And year by year, they would go

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back out. The Japanese whaling fleet would go back out. Sea Shepherd would meet them. There'd

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be Sea Shepherd Australia. There'd be Sea Shepherd in the Southeast and

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in the US. And people would fly from all over the world to be on these

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boats to make sure that whaling didn't happen or they made just

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it was really bad. The Japanese were like, we're out,

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we're done. This is not happening anymore. We don't want to have anything to

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do with it. And so they basically stopped. And at one point, you're just like,

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look, I may not agree with the way they did things, the Sea Shepherd did things, but

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they kind of did us a favor. They got so annoying and so

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in your face that finally the Japanese whaling fleet was like, we're not going to hunt in

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the Southern Ocean and hunt all these minke whales and other whales. We're

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going to hunt just within our territorial waters. And

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so that's what they did. That's what happened. At one point, you're just kind of like, okay,

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like we've been talking crap about this Sea Shepherd organization for

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a while, because a lot of times we didn't really like what they do. And a lot of people do, and a lot of people love

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what they did. And to be honest, there's a lot of supporters for

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Sea Shepherd were very, you know, I would say like aggressive towards

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like Greenpeace. There was like a beef between them because like, oh, you're not,

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you know, I used to see arguments all the time between, you know, Greenpeace activists

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and Sea Shepherd supporters and activists and be like, Sea Shepherd supporters, you're

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not, you know, aggressive enough and you're not doing what you're supposed to

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be doing. And Greenpeace was like, we're working with government. We're trying to do

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our change. We've been successful in a lot of places. And, and,

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At the time, I remember saying like I did an episode on on sort of the beef and

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going back and forth. And I remember saying, look, there is room for

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different organizations that take a different toll. And they're all needed, whether

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we love it or not, but they're all needed. We need the extremes. We need sort

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of the the people who are less extreme and working with

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governments and different stakeholders. And it's kind of like a balance a

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little bit. And it's hard. It's hard to say that because you

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don't want to see anybody get hurt. You don't want to see anybody ramming boats or anything like

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that. But This is what happens. And

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because of that, the Japanese have been seeking out... you

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know, Captain Paul Watson a number of different times. And

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one time he went to Germany, he flew into Germany, he's flying somewhere, I don't know where.

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I think he, I think he lives in France, but he's flying to Germany to fly somewhere else.

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And the German authorities arrested him and said, hey, you know what, you

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know, there's, there's some people in Japan that want to talk to you. And there was going to

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be an extradition and that got fought. And eventually he came home, but

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it was, it was in several weeks where he was incarcerated and

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people like the Sea Shepherd support was like, what's going on now? At this point, Sea

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Shepherd has gotten in or gone international. They have TV show whale wars,

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they've been in the news a number of different times for their activism and

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what they've been able to accomplish and what they've been able to do. Some

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good, some bad. Most of the notorious stuff, nefarious stuff, were

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out in the public and that's what they were known for. Whether you liked it or not, that's

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what they did and they were known for it. They were either popular in their supporters' eyes

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or people just didn't like them. A lot of people in conservation are just like, I

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don't want anything to do with Sea Shepherd, we don't appreciate, we don't

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agree with what they do, but that was it. Like there's nothing

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that, you know, people in marine conservation could really do. They're an organization, they

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get funded, they have money, they have boats, all this kind of stuff. A lot of celebrities

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were endorsing them, a lot of celebrities were donating boats. Bob Barker was

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one of the boats. Bob Barker is a very popular game show

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personality. He was the host of The Price is Right for a long time, and

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he's very big into animal advocacy. And he was

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supporting Sea Shepherd. He was supporting Captain Paul Watson. And

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so a lot of the supporters came to his rescue,

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and eventually he got released from Germany, never went to Japan.

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God knows what would happen if he ever went to Japan. And so he That's

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what he did, and he got away. And so he continued

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on with Sea Shepherd for a number of years. And then recently, within

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the last few years, Sea Shepherd has started to take a

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different turn. And they saw the writing on the wall. They saw that

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they wanted to shift from a more aggressive approach. But sorry, before I

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get into that, after the whale wars sort

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of stopped, they started to get into, and I don't know if they were still doing it at

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the same time, but they started to get more popular for tracking

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down excuse me, tracking down other ships,

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like fishing vessels that were fishing illegally, either in marine protected

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areas, or they weren't reporting their fishing activities. So

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they were IUU fishing. So it's illegal, unreported,

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and unregulated fishing. And so that's a

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big no-no, but they're in the high seas. It's very difficult to tell. They

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would come in. These illegal fishing vessels would come into port.

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They would unload, sell all their stuff, and then they would leave before the

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authorities knew it. There's a lot of new research

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on ways to actually enforce and try

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and catch some of these illegal vessels or some of these vessels

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that are doing illegal things. And a lot of times they

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are up to no good and they have fishing slaves on there and

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it's awful, fishery slaves. It's awful, but there's that will come more

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in another episode, but that's what the Sea Shepherd was doing. They were following

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these vessels They were tracking them. They're talking to the regular authorities the

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country smaller countries would actually hire them to come in Mexico

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even Hired them to come into the Sea of Cortez To

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be able to monitor fishing boats and not use gill nets so that they didn't

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take up the total boat to try and catch total bow Total

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total bow. I think it's called total bow total bow Oh,

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I forget the name. It's an endangered species that's caught

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using gill nets, but they also catch a

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small marine mammal. And so not

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getting into that, but they would be called on to patrol

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those waters, eventually getting kicked out by the Mexican government. So

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there's never like a really good relationship with a lot of these.

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It seems to come and go with this relationship. But the thing is,

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they had boats, and they were willing to patrol. They were willing to enforce any

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kind of laws as long as the countries would have them. And so

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that's what they got popular for. And I, you know, even I started like,

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well, they're not doing it, they're not ramming boats, they're catching boats, they're following them,

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and they're reporting on them. And it's like, hey, you know, it's kind of nice that

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people are doing this. And we're, we always talk about

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people need to step up, governments needs to step up, but they're not stepping up.

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And so you're like, We, you know, you get frustrated and that's what happens. You

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get, you know, organizations like She Shepard who are doing this type of work and

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have the money and have the vessels, have the operators and to be

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able to go and do this kind of work. And so they do. And you're like, okay, this

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is great. Like this is, this is great work. So,

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you know, they start doing that. And then all of a sudden, a couple of years ago, I

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started to read about how, like some of the supporters that I

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follow on, on Facebook and stuff, I start to see, I'm like, what's

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happened with Paul Watson and and Sea Shepherd, like

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Captain Paul Watson's out of the Sea Shepherd organization. And what

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happened is that there was a bit of a coup, and not a bit of a coup, there

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was a coup in the Sea Shepherd organization where the board members got together and

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essentially ousted Paul Watson from a lot of

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the organization that he was able to create and

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expand. And there are so many different Sea Shepherds, I

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guess they're all individually managed within the organizations, like

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within different countries, that the board members like went behind his

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back and was like, they got support from certain Sea

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Shepherd countries in different countries. And then others were very loyal to

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Paul Watson. And then it got very little, the people who were the

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organizations in different countries that were loyal to Paul Watson.

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And so then Paul Watson all of a sudden is ousted from the main

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international Sea Shepherd. like Sea Shepherd International. And he's pissed. He's

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not happy. He's starting to write about it a number of

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different times, like all on his post, how he felt stabbed in the back, how people

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he brought on and he put together to

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be Sea Shepherd supporters and advocates

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and board members and staff members. All of a sudden, they betrayed

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him. And I guess they thought they wanted the organization

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to go into a different route, just like Greenpeace, to start working more

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with policy and do more non-aggressive things,

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and of course Captain Paul Watson is not for that type

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of way, and so he got ousted. They had a disagreement, they

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ousted him. behind his back, it seems, and I

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guess that's how it goes. And so he was

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looking for a new foundation. I forget

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the name of the new foundation, but he did start a new foundation, started

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to get some ships, bought some, was retrofitting some

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of them to fit his needs. And then I think he was starting to do

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a campaign on overfishing and illegal fishing. And

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that's, I think, how he got caught. A lot of this is assumptions. I'm just kind of

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ranting on this. But this is what happens when

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you're an advocate and your methods are more aggressive.

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You start to piss people off. You start to piss countries off. And countries are

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like, hey, you know what? We're going to come after you. And Japan apparently

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still remembers what Paul Watson did and

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his organization did. So they have a warrant out. If

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he ever goes to Japan, he probably will get arrested. go

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to trial, get convicted, and spend a long time in jail. I

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don't know what the charges are, but I do know that Japan wants him.

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And there are certain countries that have extradition agreements with

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Japan. And I think one of those is either Denmark or

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Norway. And he flew to Greenland to

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go somewhere else, and he got arrested right there. and now he's being,

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you know, sort of, I think they're evaluating whether he needs to be extradited to Japan.

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Now, my concern is if he does go to Japan, he will get convicted, he

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will go to jail for quite a long time, and he's older now, he's

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in his 70s, so any kind of long-term sentence

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could be the last, unfortunately, that we see, and

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I wouldn't want to see anybody do that. I don't know, you know, what

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the charges are, or, you know, whether he's guilty of that, My

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point of this story is, was

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it worth it? Was he able

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to get all the stuff that he wanted done, or

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at least some of the stuff that he wanted done, and he created

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Greenpeace, he created Sea Shepherd, Those

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are two organizations who have done some changes, who have made some significant changes

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and small changes in various countries around the world in terms of

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advocates. They're people, they've employed a lot of marine conservationists, they've

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employed activists, they've employed policy makers,

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they've worked with governments, they've been able to Hammer out agreements,

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and they've been able to protest certain issues Especially as they come up

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like seeing things like deep deep sea mining and now you

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know you have the guy who founded both of those Organizations who have seen

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some success and have gotten very popular funded like

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I gotta tell you it is not easy to get funded It is not easy

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for an organization to get funded and here He is he's also been

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able to you know get a lot of funding you know to get ships multiple

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ships donated to and by celebrities and

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other organizations and companies. That is a true feat

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within marine conservation. Now, on the other hand, you

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know, not only has he pissed people off, but he's also said some pretty abhorrent

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things, you know, over his lifetime. you know, and a lot of

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it, you know, recently as I was, you know, interacting

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with a colleague of mine, a friend, somebody who's like

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sort of like an internet friend, you know, we don't really know each other offline,

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but we, you know, we respect the work that we do. Asking questions, I

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was like, you know, she, she responded, it's like, oh, you know, Captain Paul Watson is

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getting arrested. She's like, surprise, surprise, I hope he

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rots in hell for some of the things he said. And I was just like, you know, I responded being

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like, well, this is a lot of people think he's, I remember like, why do you think

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this? She said he said some pretty nasty things against indigenous

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people and I think I think it has to do with in

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2015 2016 you know there were a lot there's a look I guess it was a bit of a controversy of

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indigenous people in the north whether it be Alaska or

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even in the Canadian north and in in the Yukon

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as well as Northwest Territories and Nunavut, where they

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were, you know, some Nuvialis were selling their

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quotas to, you know, rich hunters who were going up

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and, you know, killing, basically hunting for polar bears. And

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the indigenous people up there have quotas, certain quotas that

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they can hunt and they're allowed to sell those quotas. and allow to be

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a guide for those people to get, you know, those prize hunts. I

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guess it's similar to people in Africa who have those quotas, they

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can sell it to people who come over, rich, usually hunters

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who come over and sort of get these major tags and these major

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quotas and hunt lions, tigers, wherever they are,

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not in Africa, obviously, but elephants and so forth. And

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they, you know, they take pictures out with it and they spend, you know, 50, like

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50 thousands, like tens of thousands of dollars. And, you know, a lot of people don't

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like it, but, you know, it's a money maker for the

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Indigenous people who, you know, their history within Canada

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and the U.S. is very complex, very

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controversial. You know, as a Canadian in the past, we have treated

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and we continue sometimes to treat Indigenous people like crap. And,

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you know, obviously we need to do better. Selling these quotas was

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a way that they wanted to make money. And that's the

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way it was done. Captain Paul Watson did not like the

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way that was done and said he was they were being a traitor to nature

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and the way their culture and things like that, which was obviously not the

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right thing to say. And I think that's what this

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person that I was interacting with. on

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threads at the time was talking about. And I get it. I totally get

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it. There are very different sides of Captain Paul Watson. There

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are some things where he has said he's very true to his word in

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terms of he doesn't like hunting, he doesn't like anything, any harm to any kind of animals. And

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so people really respect him for it, but the way he goes about it, people really

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hate him for it as well. And so when you start to be

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this polarizing, And bad things happen

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00:23:06,826 --> 00:23:10,169
to you, people will start to, you know, applaud it, the people who

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do not see eye to eye with you, and the way you've treated other people,

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00:23:14,452 --> 00:23:17,895
they will applaud the fact that you've been arrested, it's almost like karma

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coming back at you. And at some point, you're going to have some ups

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and downs. And those downs could be being arrested and, and

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being, you know, evaluated for extradition or being prepared for

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extradition. You know, we've seen a lot of people make that sacrifice for

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what their values are. And I feel like Captain Paul Watson

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is one of those people. There was a petition going around to try and

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plead with the government that arrested him to say, hey, you know what? Can

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you let him go? He's been such a huge advocate

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00:23:46,718 --> 00:23:50,741
for the ocean, and we want to make sure that he's able to stick

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around and do all this kind of stuff. And at some point, people were like, I don't really care.

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like people like this is what he's done this is what he deserves so I would love to

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00:23:57,447 --> 00:24:00,810
know where you fit on the spectrum like do you say hey

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you know what he's a great hero and he should be he should

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00:24:04,193 --> 00:24:07,495
be honored for that Canada where he's Canadian Canada should be

402
00:24:07,536 --> 00:24:10,938
helping him out other countries should be helping him out Sea

403
00:24:10,978 --> 00:24:14,139
Shepherd should be helping him out but He's not part of Sea

404
00:24:14,179 --> 00:24:17,461
Shepherd anymore. Or are you on the side of, look, this guy has done

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00:24:17,501 --> 00:24:20,724
some really bad things. He said some really bad things to indigenous people

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00:24:20,764 --> 00:24:24,987
as well as other things. He's chose violence to help

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conservation. I don't believe that. I would love to see him arrested or he

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00:24:28,250 --> 00:24:31,392
deserves this. Love to hear your thoughts. Hit me up on

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00:24:31,513 --> 00:24:34,875
Instagram. Or if you're listening to this on Spotify, you

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00:24:34,895 --> 00:24:38,998
can just comment on Spotify. Does Paul Watson deserve to be I'd

411
00:24:39,358 --> 00:24:43,440
love to hear your thoughts on this. Hit me up on Instagram at HowToProtectTheOcean

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00:24:43,460 --> 00:24:46,802
if you want to DM me, or if you're listening to this on Spotify, hit that poll

413
00:24:46,902 --> 00:24:50,203
and just say, hey, do you think Kevin Paul

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00:24:50,223 --> 00:24:53,385
Watson should be arrested? Love to hear your thoughts on this,

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00:24:53,405 --> 00:24:56,506
because that's what this is about. This is a podcast where I start the conversation. I want

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00:24:56,546 --> 00:24:59,788
to hear how you feel about this. Because that's why

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I start this podcast. That's why I do this podcast each and every

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00:25:03,171 --> 00:25:06,514
time I record. So thank you very much for listening. You have been listening

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00:25:06,574 --> 00:25:09,696
to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day.