January 24, 2024

Outside magazine decided to do a fluff piece on Peter Hammarstedt, overlooking his deceit and the fact that he betrayed the entire Sea Shepherd movement. 

Of course, the story needs a rebuttal and this is it:

OUTSIDE: Both Watson and Hammarstedt were members of the U.S. board, and as the internal strife spilled onto social media, Sea Shepherd Global asked Watson to stop publicly criticizing the U.S. chapter. When he wouldn’t—at least not to the board’s satisfaction—they called on him to step down. He refused, so they voted to dismiss him. The U.S. chapter sued Watson, though Watson has since announced that he settled amicably with Singh and the chapter. 

CAPTAIN PAUL WATSON: This is a very manipulative statement by Peter Hammarstedt. In truth Alex Cornelissena and Peter Hammarstedt had a bitter split with Pritam Singh. They vowed to never work with him again and they both resigned from the U.S. Board in the Spring of 2022. The Global Board of which I was a member, along with Sea Shepherd France President Lamya Essemlali, did not dismiss me because of Sea Shepherd in the U.S. What they did was take the opportunity of my resignation from the U.S. Board to remove me. I publicly said in July 2023 that I would support and continue to work with Sea Shepherd Global. Ten days later in early August,2022, four of the six Global directors called a secret meeting not inviting Lamya Esemlali and I. Lamya was informed of the vote after the fact at the end of August. On September 2nd, 2022, I received an email informing me that I was dismissed. No reasons were given. There was no discussion and Lamya and I were not informed, thus we did not have a vote. In December 2023 a Dutch court ruled that the dismissal was unlawful. The four Global Directors then dismissed Lamya Essemlali without a meeting, a discussion or a vote.

OUTSIDE: Nevertheless, it was a painful turn of events for Hammarstedt. “I love Paul,” he told me later. “But when you join a board of directors, you take an oath to put the financial and legal well-being of the organization above all else. That can sometimes put you in conflict with family, and in this case a mentor who’s like family.” Now Hammarstedt finds himself helping chart a new direction for an international organization that has lost the figurehead who defined it for so many years.

CAPTAIN PAUL WATSON: This statement by Peter Hammarstedt is both deceitful and laughable. There was never any oath of allegiance required to be a Board member. We have never in our entire history put our “legal and financial well-being of the organization above all.” We always put the mission and our clients, the whales, the seals, the fishes above all else. In every single mission we risked everything to protect and defend lives in the sea. More than anything else this statement reveals Peter Hammarstedt’s priorities – self-interests, self security, and caution; three things that have never defined what we are about. This new direction is about complicity with governments and corporations. They did not lose myself as a figurehead, they illegally and disrespectfully forced me out, seizing the assets, the ships and the memberships. If this is how Peter believes his family should be treated, he has some serious ethical issues. Peter Hammarstedt did not just betray me, he betrayed everything that Sea Shepherd ever stood for – aggressive non-violence, non-compromising and confrontational. We were unique as a global movement. 

OUTSIDE: In the end, Hammarstedt’s was the lone no vote when Sea Shepherd Global’s four-member board voted to scrap it in 2021. 

Captain Paul Watson: In 2021 there were six directors (not four) including Lamya Essemlali and myself. We were never informed of this vote and both Lamya and myself were not informed and certainly did not vote to scrap the Bob Barker, the ship that I found and secured for Sea Shepherd originally. We wanted to retire the ship in a high-profile campaigns to the Faroe Islands where the Faroese threatened to seize and Sea Shepherd ship that entered their waters.

The article describe me as “an incendiary and divisive activist.” “Watson who has been called a terrorist” The tone of the article is to be dismissive of me in order to justify the mainstream course that Sea Shepherd Global has now taken. 

Outside: Eventually, Hammarstedt rose to become the organization’s director of campaigns, often functioning as the public face of Sea Shepherd. He worked closely with Watson to muster crews and decide which fisheries to target and which ships to use. Crucially, he helped garner media attention, most notably in the form of the Animal Planet series Whale Wars, which debuted in 2008 and documented the high-seas escapades of the Sea Shepherd fleet for seven seasons, helping to bring the organization to a new level of public exposure.

Captain Paul Watson: Hammarstedt was appointed director of campaigns by Alex Cornelissen. There was no vote. He never worked closely with me to muster crews. He had absolutely nothing to do with crewing during the Whale Wars series. He had nothing to do with strategies and tactics. Everything he did in the Whale Wars series was under my direction and guidance.

OUTSIDE: There are 15 Sea Shepherd chapters around the world, each incorporated independently to protect the organization from lawsuits. Sea Shepherd Global is the largest, with about 25 employees and 115 crew, mostly volunteers. Watson was a director of the U.S. chapter, but since about 2019 had clashed with its chairman, Pritam Singh, who wanted to focus on science and research instead of flamboyant conflict. In a statement Watson issued in July 2022, he opposed turning “our fleet away from confronting illegal poachers … and into non-controversial research vessels.”

CAPTAIN PAUL WATSON: There were 15 Sea Shepherd Chapters around the world. Now there are only three. Only Sea Shepherd France, Brazil and the USA are independent of Sea Shepherd Global. Sea Shepherd Global was established in 2013 to coordinate the operation of ships and campaigns. It was never meant to control the other independent groups. I was not just a director for Sea Shepherd USA as the article describes, I was a director for most of the independent entities. Today I remain a director of Sea Shepherd France and Sea Shepherd Brazil.

OUTSIDE: Hammarstedt takes the slings in stride. He knows that Watson is hurt. But for him the partnerships were a no-brainer. “Working with governments, we could save one million sharks a year versus 1,000 whales,” he says.CAPTAIN PAUL WATSON: I was not hurt. I was disgusted. I was deceitfully betrayed. There are plenty of organizations working with governments. I did not establish Sea Shepherd to work with governments. I agreed to work with governments when it was convenient and initiated partnerships with Trinidad in the Nineties and beginning in 2000 with Ecuador to protect the Galapagos. I also initiated the partnerships with Mexico to protect the Vaquita in  2015, something that Sea Shepherd USA continues. The difference with the Global partnerships is that the governments dictate the partnerships meaning Global can’t fly the Jolly Roger, can’t criticize government corruption and in the case of Namibia cannot be critical of or speak out against the 2nd largest seal slaughter on the planet in exchange for free berthage at the government docks.

It was not until after our unlawful dismissal that Lamya Essemlali and I discovered other decisions that were made without our knowledge or involvement.

Peter and Alex Corneilssen made a decision when Lamya and I were still on the Board to work out a deal with Israel. Global hired the Israeli security firm Yamasec (similar to America’s Blackwater) and paid them hundreds of thousands of Euros to provide security and to train African military in the use of firearms on Sea Shepherd ships.

Some Captains reported that the Israelis were calling the shots on operations with Hammarstedt’s approval.

We were never informed of hiring Yamasec nor were we informed of Sea Shepherd sending the Bob Barker to Israel, to patrol the most heavily defended coastline on the planet. Never before had Sea Shepherd small boats been deployed flying a national flag as we witnessed the boats going back and forth with large Israeli flags. It didn’t make any sense. Sea Shepherd Global was boasting of protecting Israeli waters from foreign fishermen and the only fishermen in Israeli waters were Palestinians. It was bizarre and as one former crewmember said, “Peter Hammarstedt made so many trips to Israel you would think he had been recruited by Mossad.”

It was for asking questions about decisions about relationships with foreign governments made without the full knowledge of all the directors that Lamya Essemlali was unlawfully dismissed.

Another decision made was to partner with the Austral Fisheries Corporation, one of the largest Antarctic Toothfish fishing companies in the world, a company 50% owned by the Japanese fishing company Maruha Daichiro. This was in exchange for Austral Fisheries CEO David Carter pulling strings to get a tax-deductible status for Sea Shepherd Australia. Austral Fisheries also sold Sea Shepherd Global a ship at a discounted price and add a large fuel donation.

When I asked questions about the Austral Fisheries connection, I was dismissed from the Australian Sea Shepherd Board.

What has happened is the hi-jacking the world’s most uncompromising, controversial, and effective marine conservation organization, forcing it into the mainstream as just another fund-raising, compromising, mediocre, self-promoting eco-bureaucracy.

The title of this Outside Magazine Piece is What Happens When Sea Shepherd’s Eco Outlaws Start Working with the Man?

The answer is: The Man Wins. Namibian seals get slaughtered, ships get scrapped, corporations and governments get greenwashed and an effective movement is compromised, sidelined and rendered impotent.

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