December 29, 2023

Excellent profile on Lamya Essemlali, the President of Sea Shepherd France in the French publication Reporterre. At the top of the article is a connection for an English translation. The translation is not great but understandable.

When people ask me who do I think should replace me as the leader of the Sea Shepherd movement, the answer is easy. Lamya Essemlali has been the most dynamic and tireless Sea Shepherd leader for years. What she has done in building Sea Shepherd France into the most effective national Sea Shepherd entity has been inspiring.

Her recent victory in halting the slaughter of dolphins by the French trawler fleet, her deployment of an anti-sea turtle poaching crew to the Indian Ocean island of Mayotte, her establishment of a wildlife care center in Brittany to her recent campaign against super trawlers has demonstrated that she has the courage, the passion and determination to lead Sea Shepherd, not just in France but globally.

Last year she was unlawfully dismissed from the Sea Shepherd Global Board for questioning secret decisions and withholding of information. The four directors who dismissed her are now in a lawsuit to be heard in January where they are demanding that Sea Shepherd France cannot use the Sea Shepherd name or Sea Shepherd logos because they claim that the name and logs belong to them exclusively although both the name and logos were created by me.

Last year Sea Shepherd Global CEO Alex Cornelissen accused Lamya of wasting money and time rescuing individual stranded whales and an Orca and a Beluga trapped in the River Seine. Alex said that Sea Shepherd should not be concerned with individual animals and she should be concerned about the bigger picture.

But what is the point of caring only about the bigger picture when we must turn our back on the suffering and welfare of individual living self aware sentient beings? We can be just as passionate about saving an individual whale as we are against the slaughter of hundreds

It is precisely because of her encompassing compassion that Lamya Essemlali is the right person to lead the Sea Shepherd movement, not just in France but globally. It is my wish that she becomes the face of Sea Shepherd.

If our movement is to be rescued from the tyranny of these four self-interested authoritarian men, Lamya is the woman who can do it.

https://reporterre.net/Lamya-Essemlali-l-irreductible-pirate