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Paul Watson

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For other notable people named Paul Watson, see Paul Watson (disambiguation).
Paul Watson
Paul Watson, in front of the "Steve Irwin" docked in Hobart. January 2009
BornDecember 2, 1950 (1950-12-02) (age 58)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
NationalityCanadian
OccupationActivist
Spouse(s)Starlet Lum
Lisa DiStefano
Allison Lance
Websitehttp://www.seashepherd.org

Paul Watson, (born December 2, 1950) is a Canadian animal rights and environmental activist.[1] He is the founder and president of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Early and personal life

Watson was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada to Anthony Joseph Watson and Annamarie Larsen, and grew up in St. Andrews, New Brunswick. After working as a tour guide at Expo 67, the World's Fair that took place in Montreal in 1967, Watson "rode the rails" in boxcars west to Vancouver.[2]

In 1968 and the early 1970s, he joined the Canadian Coast Guard, where he served aboard weatherships, search and rescue hovercraft, and buoy tenders. He signed up as a merchant seaman in 1969 with the Norwegian Consulate in Vancouver and shipped out on the 35,000 ton bulk carrier Bris as a deck hand. The Bris was registered in Oslo, Norway and manifested for the Indian Ocean and Pacific trade.[2]

Watson, currently single, has one child (born 1980) with his first wife, Starlet Lum, a founding director of Greenpeace Quebec, Earthforce!, Project Wolf, and Sea Shepherd. His second wife, Lisa DiStefano, a former 'Playboy' model was Sea Shepherd's Director of Operations during the Makah anti-whaling campaigns in Friday Harbor.[1] His third wife, Allison Lance is also a prominent animal rights activist and a volunteer crew member of the Sea Shepherd.[3][4][5]

Activism

In October 1969, Watson joined a Sierra Club protest against nuclear testing at Amchitka Island. The group which formed as a result of that protest was the Don't Make a Wave Committee, which evolved into the group known today as Greenpeace.[6] Watson was a founding member of the the organization and sailed as a crewmember aboard the Greenpeace Too! ship in 1971,</ref>[7] and skippered the Greenpeace boat Astral in 1972.[2]

Watson worked as a medic for the members of the American Indian Movement during the Wounded Knee Incident in South Dakota.[8] He says that he was given the name Grey Wolf Clear Water by medicine men of the Oglala Sioux.[9]

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Main article: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

The first Sea Shepherd vessel, the Sea Shepherd, was purchased in December 1978 with assistance from Fund for Animals.[7] Sea Shepherd soon established itself as one of the more controversial environmental groups, known for provocative direct action tactics. These tactics have included throwing objects onto the decks of whaling ships, the use of "prop foulers" in an attempt to sabotage the ships, boarding whaling vessels,[10] and the scuttling of two ships in an Icelandic harbor.[11] Watson remains the leader of Sea Shepherd today and uses the title "Captain" in reference to his role in the organization, although has never been licensed as a ship's captain.[1] The organization and its activities to halt whaling are the focus of a reality TV series, Whale Wars, airing on Animal Planet.

Other environmental activities

Watson was a field correspondent for Defenders of Wildlife from 1976 to 1980 and a field representative for the Fund for Animals from 1978 to 1981.[7] Watson also was a co-founder of Friends of the Wolf and Earthforce Environmental Society.[7]

During the 1980s, Watson declared his support for Earth First! and cultivated friendships with David Foreman and Edward Abbey. He proclaimed Sea Shepherd to be the "navy" of Earth First! Watson has claimed to have invented the tactic of tree spiking.[12]

Although currently unaffiliated with it, Watson did work with the Green Party of British Columbia in Vancouver in the 1980s and 90s.[13]He ran for mayor in 1996, placing fourth.[14]

In April 2003, Watson was elected to the board of directors of the Sierra Club for a three-year term. [5] In 2006, he did not seek re-election. He resigned from the board a month before his term ended, in protest against the organization's sponsorship of a "Why I Hunt" essay contest.[15]

Watson feels that "no human community should be larger than 20,000 people," human populations need to be reduced radically to "fewer than one billion," and only those who are "completely dedicated to the responsibility" of caring for the biosphere should have children, which is a "very small percentage of humans." He likens humankind to a virus, the biosphere needs to get cured from with a "radical and invasive approach," as from cancer.[16]

It was in July 2005 that Watson first introduced his highly contorversial solution to the "human virus" problem. It was Watson's contention that a human/whale hybrid may be possible that would curb much of humanity's destructive tendencies. Watson has often spoken about his sexual attraction to whales and claims that his affections are returned in kind. Said Watson in 2005, "Whales love me and I love whales. They are such gentle creatures. My wife understands this affection and knows that she is my "land wife," while Isabel, a bottle nose dolphin that frequents the coast of California, is my "sea wife."

When some of his contemporaries recognized that Watson's human/whale hybrid theory may have some merit, they suggested that this new race, due to recent advances in genetic engineering, could most easily be created in a lab. Watson, however, forever true to his values, rejected this suggestion and remains adamant that this new species must arise "organically."

In January 2008 Paul Watson was named by the The Guardian as one of its "50 people who could save the planet" for the work of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.[17]

Strategy and tactics

Watson published Earthforce!, a guide to strategy for environmental activists in 1993.[18] In it, he specifically endorsed the tactics of “monkeywrenching” previously described by Dave Foreman[19] and Edward Abbey[20]:

“Field tactics: For environmental activists, these tactics are known as “monkey-wrenching. These are tactics of sabotage, covert activity, and direct action. The recommended manual for the study of field tactics in the environmental movement is Eco-Defense—The Field Guide to Monkey-Wrenching by Dave Foreman.”[21]

Watson says he incorporated his own personal experience in writing the book.[22] He also expresses disdain for truthfulness in the pursuit of environmental protection goals:

“The nature of the mass media today is such that the truth is irrelevant. What is true and what is right to the general public is what is defined as true and right by the mass media. Ronald Reagan understood that the facts are not relevant. The media reported what he said as fact. Follow-up investigation was “old news.” A headline comment on Monday’s newspaper far outweighs the revelation of inaccuracy revealed in a small box inside the paper on Tuesday or Wednesday.” [23]

Watson was explicit on this score: “If you do not know an answer, a fact, or a statistic, then simply follow the example of an American President and do as Ronald Reagan did—make it up on the spot and deliver the information confidently and without hesitation.”[24] This has been noted and reported by the news media.[25] In a subsequent book, Ocean Warrior, Watson reiterated this view, saying: “Survival in a media culture meant developing the skills to understand and manipulate media to achieve strategic objectives.” [26]

Controversy

Watson was arrested in 1993 in Canada on charges stemming from actions against Cuban and Spanish fishing boats off the coast of Newfoundland.[27] In 1997, Watson was convicted in absentia by Norway on charges of attempting to sink the small scale Norwegian fishing vessel Nybrænna in 1992,[28] but Dutch authorities refused to hand him over to Norwegian authorities although he did spend at least 60 days in detention in the Netherlands before being released.

There have not been any successful attempts at prosecuting Watson for his activities with Sea Shepherd since the trial in Newfoundland. Watson himself defends his actions as falling within international law, in particular Sea Shepherd's right to enforce maritime regulations against illegal whalers and sealers.[29] Watson caught a Costa Rican fishing boat poaching in Guatemalan waters while he was on a journey to Costa Rica, having been invited by its president to help in the fight against shark poaching there. The authorities in Costa Rica later filed seven charges of attempted murder against Watson and a colleague, Rob Stewart, in what Watson and Stewart have described as an effort to cover up mafia-funded illegal shark finning operations.[30] They eventually fled to international waters to escape arrest by Costa Rican coast guards after they had filmed what they attest was mafia-funded shark-finning in private docks. These events are featured in Sharkwater,[31] a documentary about sharks and activism.

Paul Watson leads protest against Makah whaling, Port Angeles, Washington, 1998.

Watson was also told to leave Iceland after having turned himself in to the Icelandic police after disabling two ships in harbor. Kristjan Loftsson of Iceland's largest whaling company told The New Yorker that Watson is persona non grata in that country.[1]

After his election to the national Sierra Club Steering Committee in 2003, Watson supported an unsuccessful slate of candidates supporting strict immigration controls as an element of a population stabilization policy. This effort was denounced by another candidate in the election, Morris Dees of the Southern Poverty Law Center as a "hostile takeover" attempt by "radical anti-immigrant activists."[32] Watson responded by saying that the only change he was seeking in the organization's immigration stance was to restore the position it had held before its 1996 "neutrality policy."[33]

In April 2008, Watson stated that, while the deaths of three Canadian seal hunters (a fourth one is still missing) in a marine accident involving a Canadian Coast Guard vessel and a fishing boat during the 2008 Canadian Commercial Seal Hunt were a tragedy, he felt that the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of seals is an even greater tragedy. Canadian Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn accused Watson of trivializing the memory of the lost sealers and called him "gutless, shameless, without a shred of human decency" and said that "his lust for media coverage knew no bounds."[34] Watson replied that Mr. Hearn was trying to distract attention from his government's incompetence, while his political ambitions continued to support and subsidize an industry that had no place in the 21st Century.[35] Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams was quoted as saying, "I think what a lot of people don't realize is that this man is a terrorist."[36] In response, Watson said that calling him a 'terrorist' might be cute, but it had no foundation in reality, as he had never injured anyone, or been convicted of a crime.[37]

Removal from Greenpeace Board

Paul Watson continued as a crewmember, skipper, and officer aboard several Greenpeace voyages throughout the mid-1970s. According to Watson, in June 1975 during a Greenpeace campaign to confront Soviet whaling, an incident occurred which changed his life. From the official Watson biography:

"In 1975, Watson served as First officer under Captain John Cormack on the voyage to confront the Soviet Whaling fleet. In June 1975, Robert Hunter and Paul Watson were the first people to put their lives on the line to protect whales when Paul placed his inflatable Zodiac between a Russian harpoon vessel and a pod of defenseless Sperm whales. During this confrontation with the Russian whaler, a harpooned and dying sperm whale loomed over Paul's small boat. Paul recognized a flicker of understanding in the dying whale's eye. He felt that the whale knew what they were trying to do. He watched as the magnificent leviathan heaved its body away from his boat, slipped beneath the waves and died. A few seconds of looking into this dying whale's eye changed his life forever. He vowed to become a lifelong defender of the whales and all creatures of the seas."[2]

Watson is quoted in Peter Heller's Whale Warriors (2007) as giving a similar story. According to Heller, in June 1975 Watson and Robert Hunter were confronting Soviet whalers off Siberia hunting gray whales when a big, male gray whale surfaced near their boat. The whale reportedly looked Watson in the eye, changing his life forever. This event happened in the same month that the above quoted encounter with the sperm whales occurred.[38]

In 1977, Watson was expelled from the Greenpeace's board of directors by a vote of 11 to 1[39][40] (Watson himself cast the single vote against it). The group felt his strong, "front and center" personality and frequently voiced opposition to Greenpeace's interpretation of "nonviolence" were too divisive.[41] Watson subsequently left the group. The group has since labeled his actions at the time as those of a "mutineer" within their ranks. That same year, he founded his own group, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

During an interview in 1978 with CBC Radio, Watson spoke out against Greenpeace (as well as other organizations) and their role and motives for the anti-sealing campaigns.[42] Watson accused these organizations of campaigning against the Canadian seal hunt because it is an easy way to raise money and it is a profit maker for the organizations.[42]

Alleged shooting

Watson says that he was hit in the chest by a gunshot fired from the Nisshin Maru on March 7, 2008 during a clash between Sea Shepherd's ship MV Steve Irwin, and the Nisshin Maru, and that his life was saved because he was wearing a kevlar vest with 3 trauma plates duct taped together. He claims that the shot passed through the vest and was stopped by an anti-whaling badge that Watson was wearing.[43] Reuters reported that the Australian Foreign Affairs Department had condemned the incident and that the Australian Embassy in Tokyo had been informed by the Japanese that the whalers had "fired warning shots" during the confrontation.[44] The BBC reported that the Japanese used the term "warning devices" and denied any shots were fired.[45] Sea Shepherd has produced photographs and a video that shows a piece of metal and the kevlar vest worn by Watson.[46] Neither of these two conflicting accounts can be independently confirmed. Japan has dismissed Sea Shepherd's claims as lies.[47]

Works

  • Sea Shepherd: My Fight for Whales and Seals (1981) (ISBN 0-393-01499-1)
  • Earthforce! An Earth Warrior's Guide to Strategy (1993) (ISBN 0-9616019-5-7)
  • Ocean Warrior: My Battle to End the Illegal Slaughter on the High Seas (1994) (ISBN 1-55013-599-6)
  • Seal Wars: Twenty-Five Years on the Front Lines With the Harp Seals (2002) (ISBN 1-55297-751-X)
  • Contributor to Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?: Reflections on the Liberations of Animals (2004) (ISBN 1-59056-054-X)

References

  1. ^ a b c d Khatchadourian, Raffi (November 5, 2007). "Neptune's Navy: Paul Watson's Wild Crusade to Save the Oceans". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2009-03-30.
  2. ^ a b c d "Paul Watson Biography". Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Retrieved 2008-07-27.
  3. ^ “Prosecutor Agrees to Release Allison and Alex jailed 22 days...but Fines Sea Shepherd 800,000 Yen ($8,000 US) for freeing dolphins!” December 3, 2003. [1] Accessed 2-23-09.
  4. ^ "Animal rights activist arrested in Seattle grand jury probe." Komo Staff and News Services, KomoNews.com, January 15, 2004. [2] Accessed 2-23-09.
  5. ^ Shukovsky, Paul. "No perjury charges vs. animal activist." Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 9, 2004.
  6. ^ Weyler, Rex. "Waves of Compassion". Utne Reader. Ogden Publications. Retrieved 2009-02-04.
  7. ^ a b c d "Paul Watson bio". Tribute.ca. Tribute Entertainment Media Group. Retrieved 2009-02-04.
  8. ^ Shepherd, Jim (2006-05-31). "One to watch at The Sierra Club". ESPN. ESPN Internet Ventures. Retrieved 2009-02-04.
  9. ^ Watson, Paul (1982). "4, Wounded Knee". In Joseph Newman (ed.). Sea Shepherd: My Fight for Whales and Seals (First ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Company. p. 68. ISBN 0393014991. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  10. ^ "Govt to keep up pressure on whalers". Yahoo!7. Yahoo!7 Pty Limited. 2009-01-22. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
  11. ^ "Whaling Ships Refloated in Iceland". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. 1986-11-20. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
  12. ^ DeWeese, Tom (2004-02-04). "The Sierra Club's Immigration Wars". Canada Free Press. Retrieved 2008-02-12.
  13. ^ "33rd Parliament Election Results". Parliament of Canada. Retrieved 2009-02-13.
  14. ^ "1996 Local General Election Results- Mayor". City of Vancouver. 1996. Retrieved 2009-02-13.
  15. ^ seashepherd.org/060417 1
  16. ^ The Beginning of the End for Life as We Know it on Planet Earth? - There is a Biocentric Solution, Paul Watson, seashepherd.org, 05/04/2007
  17. ^ "50 people who could save the planet". The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-01-13.
  18. ^ Paul Watson. 1993. Earthforce! An Earth Warrior’s Guide to Strategy. La Caňada, CA: Chaco Press.
  19. ^ Foreman, Dave, and Bill Haywood, eds. Ecodefense: A field guide to monkeywrenching. Tucson, AZ: Ned Ludd Book, 1987.
  20. ^ Abbey, Ed. The monkeywrench gang. Salt Lake City: Dream Garden Press, 1985.
  21. ^ Paul Watson. 1993. Earthforce! An Earth Warrior’s Guide to Strategy. La Caňada, CA: Chaco Press, p. 61.
  22. ^ Paul Watson. 1993. Earthforce! An Earth Warrior’s Guide to Strategy. La Caňada, CA: Chaco Press, p. 10.
  23. ^ Paul Watson. 1993. Earthforce! An Earth Warrior’s Guide to Strategy. La Caňada, CA: Chaco Press, p. 42.
  24. ^ Paul Watson. 1993. Earthforce! An Earth Warrior’s Guide to Strategy. La Caňada, CA: Chaco Press, p. 43.
  25. ^ Militants sink two of Iceland's Whaling Vessels. New York Times, November 10, 1986.
  26. ^ Watson, Paul. Ocean Warrior. Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1994, pp. 23-24.
  27. ^ Campbell, Duncan (June 3, 2002). "Champion of seas faces attempted murder case". Guardian News and Media Limited. Retrieved 2009-02-12.
  28. ^ Reine - a Norwegian Fishing and Whaling Community
  29. ^ Taylor, Jerome (20 November 2007). "The saviours of the whale". The Independent. Retrieved 2009-02-12.
  30. ^ Wolkoff, Lauren (May 28, 2002). "Rough seas for ocean activist". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2009-02-12.
  31. ^ "Sharkwater synopsis and movie info". Sharkwater documentary website. Retrieved 2007-03-24.
  32. ^ Davila, Florangela, - Immigration dispute spawns factions, anger in Sierra Club, Seattle Times, February 18 2004.
  33. ^ Pedro Monteiro. Questions and Answers About the Sierra Club Elections: An Interview with Sierra Club Director Paul Watson. April 6, 2004. Accessed January 22, 2009.
  34. ^ CBC News at Six, CBHT-TV, Nova Scotia, April 2, 2008.
  35. ^ "Sea Shepherd - I'm Not Ready To Make Nice". Sea Shepherd Society website. Retrieved 2008-07-27.
  36. ^ Williams assails anti-sealing activist Watson as 'terrorist'
  37. ^ "Hard Talk With Captain Paul Watson". Sea Shepherd Society website. Retrieved 2008-07-27.
  38. ^ Heller (2007), p. 6
  39. ^ Interview with Paul Watson. Village Voice [3]
  40. ^ Greenpeace: History of Paul Watson [4]
  41. ^ Large, Joey (January 29, 2009). "SBIFF '09: Saving the Seas Documentary Follows Paul Watson on Marine Crusades". The Santa Barbara Independent. Retrieved 2009-02-12.
  42. ^ a b Frum, Barbara (1978). "CBC interview of Paul Watson". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  43. ^ Sea Shepherd - Japanese Open Fire on Sea Shepherd Crew: Three Injured
  44. ^ http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSSYD154936
  45. ^ "Protester says whalers shot him". BBC News. 2008-03-07. Retrieved 2009-06-05.
  46. ^ http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/editorial-081106-1.html
  47. ^ Japan denies Sea Shepherd claims, news.smh.com.au, March 7, 2008

Further reading

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