THE BETRAYAL IS COMPLETE
October 11, 2023
The headline in the British Business Times says it all:
SEA SHEPHERD DITCHES DIRECT ACTION FOR COOPERATION
Sea Shepherd Global unlawfully ousted Global Directors Lamya Essemlali and myself last year because we were both considered too controversial and too action oriented, and we were also asking too many questions that the four other directors refused to answer.
From the most bad-ass marine conservation movement on the planet to becoming a servant to governments and a training program for marine engineers.
This is not why I established Sea Shepherd in 1977. It was an organization that became a global movement. Sea Shepherd was built on direct action and confrontational opposition to illegal exploitation on the high seas.
It was this approach that made Whale Wars the number one TV show on Discovery’s Animal Planet. It was this approach that secured comfortable jobs for the four Global directors that I had mentored and trained for twenty years, only to have them betray both myself and Sea Shepherd France President Lamya Essemlali, and the very principles, strategies, tactics and objectives that we established 45 years ago.
Forget the whales, the dolphins, the seals, the sharks, the turtles and the fishes. Now it’s all about engineering training programs and protecting fisheries (not fish) in African waters.
It’s about partnering with the Australian Austral Fisheries corporation and the Japanese Maruha Daichiro fishing corporation. It’s about partnering with Allianz Insurance, the Dutch Postal Code Lottery and now Lloyd’s Register. In other words, it’s about money and security.
No need to risk life and comforts when they can provide their own golden parachutes well in advance of retirement.
Lamya Essemlali and I were ousted from the Global Board because we refused to sell-out. We refused to abandon the principles that we successfully implemented for nearly half a century, the principles that drove the Japanese whaling fleet from the Southern Ocean, that knocked out the commercial market for baby seal pelts, that shut down every single pirate whaler in the Atlantic, sank four Norwegian whalers, two Spanish whalers and half the Icelandic whaling fleet.
The very name Sea Shepherd meant direct action, it meant saving whales, seals, sharks, turtles and fishes. It was a name that exemplified courage and imagination in defense of passion and life.
And now according to these four men who engineered the coup that ousted Lamya and I, plus Nathalie Gil of Sea Shepherd Brazil, Sea Shepherd Global is no longer direct action.
Sea Shepherd Global’s response to this is to sue Sea Shepherd France claiming that Sea Shepherd France and I have no right to use the name that I created or the logos I designed. These four men now control Sea Shepherd in Australia, Italy, Germany and other countries by threatening to sue for trademark violations unless they submit and comply.
They solved the Watson Problem by surrendering to the mainstream and literally ripping the guts out of everything we have stood for more than four decades.
The good news is that what we have always been, we will continue to be. Sea Shepherd France and Sea Shepherd Brazil have refused to bend the knee to the four mutineers who seized control of our movement, Sea Shepherd UK has changed their name to the Captain Paul Watson Foundation and the Captain Watson Foundation is rebuilding the navy we lost with the objective of continuing the legacy we created and led, and we now continue to lead.
We are urging all those who supported Sea Shepherd Global to now support Sea Shepherd France, Sea Shepherd Brazil and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation and Neptune’s Pirates.
We need to continue to rock the boat, to make waves and to save lives and eco-systems and we need to do it the way we have always done so by using the strategy of aggressive non-violence.