October 31, 2023

A movement is based on trust. When that bond of trust is broken there is no greater betrayal.

The Sea Shepherd movement was built on trust. There was no other way. An organization can be controlled, but the very nature of a movement is that it cannot be controlled.

Four directors of Sea Shepherd Global have betrayed the Sea Shepherd movement.

The Sea Shepherd movement was a democratic association of independent national entities. Each entity had its own Board of Directors. Each entity was free to initiate their own projects and campaigns. Each entity would work in cooperation with the other entities on a foundation of shared values, most specifically the strategy of aggressive non-violence.

Although I founded Sea Shepherd, I never attempted to control it. Instead, I delegated and encouraged individual initiative, never micromanaging the captains or national directors. The very nature of a movement is that no one person controls it.

We did have some simple guidelines;

1. Being true to the strategy of aggressive non-violence.

2. Exercising direct action campaigns.

3. Independence of national entities.

4. Transparency – no secret deals, no withholding of information from the crew and national entities. 

5. No compromising or collaboration with governments or corporations that require conditions.

6. Respect and loyalty for and between captains, officers and directors.

This decentralization with these guidelines was what made Sea Shepherd effective.

From 1977 until 2021, our movement flourished because of a mutual bond of trust between each national entity.

In 2013, we set up Sea Shepherd Global for one specific purpose and that was to manage Sea Shepherd ships. Sea Shepherd Global was supported by donations from Sea Shepherd national entities with France, Germany, and the U.K raising the most funds.

Despite this, only six people were on the Global Board, the President of Sea Shepherd France Lamya Essemlali, the Director for Sea Shepherd Australia Jeff Hansen, the director for Sea Shepherd Netherlands, Geert Vons, Dutch director Alex Corneilissen, Australian director Peter Hammarstedt and me as the founder of Sea Shepherd. The Global Board was never meant to control the national entities, it was established to manage the ships. 

Sea Shepherd Germany, the 2nd largest Sea Shepherd entity after France was not represented on the Global Board nor was Sea Shepherd U.K. even though I had advocated that they should be, something that four of the six Global directors opposed. 

In 2022, four of the six directors decided to take control of our movement ,and to do that they first ousted me from the Global Board without a legal meeting, discussion, or a vote. I was informed by email that I was dismissed.

Sea Shepherd France President Lamya Essmlali was also not allowed to vote on my dismissal and when she began to question the motives of the other four directors, she was also dismissed from the Global Board without a meeting, a discussion, or a vote. 

These four men in ousting myself and Lamya almost seized control of the entire movement.

Almost!

They did not succeed in taking control of Sea Shepherd France, the U.K. and Brazil. 

They seized the ships, the list of supporters for the national entities they took control of, and now they are suing Sea Shepherd France claiming that the name that I created and the logos that I designed belong exclusively to them.

What they could not seize however was the spirit of the Sea Shepherd movement and that spirit continues with France and Brazil. Sea Shepherd UK changed the name to the Captain Paul Watson Foundation UK.

I established the Captain Paul Watson Foundation and our activist interventionist group Neptune’s Pirates to carry on what we have always done, the strategies and objectives that the mutineers tossed overboard.

They failed to take over all of our supporters and they failed to control hundreds of campaign veterans allowing us to secure a good, strong and fast new ship, and to work with the vessels and assets of Sea Shepherd France and what is now the CPWFUK.

The movement continues with our traditional strategy of aggressive non-violence. We survived the hostile takeover with the most valuable assets, that being the passion, the courage and the imagination of our supporters and crew.

Our Foundation is now working in partnership with Sea Shepherd France and Sea Shepherd Brazil , and we have established the Captain Paul Watson Foundation in the USA, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal and Uruguay.

And we are discovering that as longtime supporters become more and more aware of the betrayal and the hostile and undemocratic takeover, they are joining our ranks.

The four mutineers who ousted Lamya Essemlali and myself must live with the stain and the shame of their betrayal and the realization that the reason people supported Sea Shepherd was because we were not mainstream, that we were controversial and most importantly we were effective.

Together with Sea Shepherd France, Sea Shepherd Brazil, the Captain Paul Watson Foundation and Neptune’s Pirates will continue to do what we have always done, to make waves, to rock the boat, to say the things that need to be said and most importantly to go where others, including Sea Shepherd Global now fear to go.

I am confident that people will be able determine the truth in the face of a total lack of transparency, a total lack of explanation and justification by the four directors who have decided to remove references to my history, to cancel and erase me as they seek to rewrite our history making themselves into the visionaries they never were in order to control something that was never theirs.