"Heroes are Hard to Find" Nothing Can Stop an Idea Whose Time Has Come Commentary by Captain Paul Watson The month of July is coming to an end. A year ago this week I left Europe to head across the North Atlantic. Since then I have crossed the South Atlantic, North and South Pacific, the Southern Ocean, the Indian Ocean and back again to the middle of the South Pacific. It has been a full year at sea and certainly an epic experience. Sea Shepherd faces many challenges this year and there will be many more challenges in the years to come but I am encouraged by the changes within Sea Shepherd, for we are no longer an organization. Sea Shepherd is now a global movement, a cooperative movement of numerous national entities all focused on the protection of that part of our planet that gives us life – the Oceans. Yes we have more enemies than ever before and we are coming under more pressure from ecological renegade nations like Japan, Iceland, the Faeroes, Costa Rica, Namibia and others. This is of course to be expected and indicates more than anything else that Sea Shepherd is having an impact. If what we do was easy, everyone would be doing it. There is a famous saying that if you don’t want to make enemies – do nothing. Sea Shepherd is about doing things. It’s about taking action. It’s about intervention and it is about defending habitats and saving the lives of the citizens of the sea. Sea Shepherd USA is fighting the Japanese whalers in the U.S. Courts. Australia and New Zealand are fighting the Japanese whalers at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Sea Shepherd U.K. is fighting the Maltese tuna poachers in the British courts. Sea Shepherd France is fighting for sharks in La Reunion courts and against poachers in the French courts. Sea Shepherd USA continues to comply with the injunction granted to the Japanese whalers to prevent Sea Shepherd USA intervening against illegal Japanese whaling and will continue to do so for as long as the injunction remains in effect. We have the Dam Guardians in Oregon and the Cove Guardians in Japan. We are fighting for the protection of reef fish out of Hawaii and working with various governments worldwide to defend sharks from poachers. Our reward programs are getting attention. In June I posted a $30,000 reward for the capture of the person or persons responsible for the murder of turtle conservationist Jairo Mora Sandoval of Costa Rica. We have posted a reward for information leading to the capture of the person or persons who killed a dolphin this last weekend in Cornwall. We have reward offers out in Florida, New Zealand and California for people who have committed crimes against wildlife. Sea Shepherd Brittany is rescuing seabirds and taking poachers to court. Sea Shepherd Hong Kong is working hard against the shark trade. Other projects are underway and making progress by Sea Shepherd in Chile, Brazil, Spain, Italy, South Africa, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Belgium, Costa Rica and New Zealand. Sea Shepherd Netherlands this summer is working in partnership with Ocean Alliance on the vessel Odyssey to do toxic research in the Gulf of Mexico as part of Operation Toxic Gulf. Sea Shepherd Ecuador continues to work in partnership with the Galapagos National Park rangers and the Ecuadorian Federal Police to patrol the Galapagos National Park Marine Reserve. Sea Shepherd Australia has the responsibility of organizing, funding and leading Operation Relentless to return for the 10th year to the Southern Ocean to defend the whales from the illegal slaughter of the whales by Japan in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. Sea Shepherd Malaysia was established just this month and we have people working to possibly establish Sea Shepherd in the Ukraine and the Maldives. There is no doubt that Sea Shepherd is a completely international movement operating in the waters off all the continents of the planet including Antarctica of course. The documentation of Operation No Compromise is presently being edited for the sixth season of Whale Wars on Animal Planet that should air later this year before the return of the ships to the Southern Ocean for Operation Relentless. The Sea Shepherd fleet of five ships now has a combined gross tonnage of 2,250 tons. This actually gives us a larger navy than Namibia with 1,762 tons, Ghana with 1,324 tons and Nigeria with 2,170 tons. Most importantly Sea Shepherd continues to maintain an impeccable record of non-violence. Not a single person injured or killed since we were established in 1977. Nor have we had a single felony crime conviction. Sea Shepherd upholds the law, we do not break it. We operate in accordance with the guidelines of the United Nations World Charter for Nature that allows for interventions by non-governmental organizations. What I find really puzzling is that the some of the people who accuse Sea Shepherd of being pirates for intervening against criminal exploitation support the corporate mercenary organization Blackwater. Blackwater is a non-governmental organization that kills people and is now owned by Monsanto. It’s a complex world of politics, culture, law, and economics in opposition to the natural laws of ecology. Sea Shepherd has worked to find solutions in an aggressive yet nonviolent manner and we have made significant progress over the years. We are stronger today than we were a year ago and we will be stronger a year from now than we are today.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 23:55:23 +0000
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