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173: From Arrest to Activism: Captain Paul Watson’s Fight for the Oceans
Guest(s): Captain Paul Wilson

Captain Paul Watson, founder of the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, joins host Matt Mattern on Climate Change to discuss his battle against illegal whaling in Japan and Iceland, his recent arrest, and the vital role of grassroots activism. Dive into the complexities of international conservation, the power of public support, and the urgent need for individual action in protecting our planet’s marine ecosystems.

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To defend life in the sea through a unique strategy of aggressive non-violence and intervention against illegal operations exploiting life in the sea. Prepare to witness a force unlike any other in the realm of ocean conservation. We are the catalysts of change, launching impactful direct-action campaigns that redefine the rules of engagement. Positioned fearlessly on the frontline, we battle relentlessly for the preservation of our seas. Our commitment goes beyond advocacy; it embodies a fierce rebellion against the status quo. With unyielding determination, we leave an indelible mark upon the pages of conservation history.
173: From Arrest to Activism: Captain Paul Watson’s Fight for the Oceans
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Every media story has four basic elements, sex scandal, violence and celebrity. If you want a story, you have to have one or more of those elements.

You’re listening to A Climate Change. This is Matt Matern, your host. I’ve got Captain Paul Watson on the program today. Captain Paul has been on the show twice before, and so we’ve had a chance to kind of follow his mission, his trajectory over a period of time.

And since we last talked to you, Captain Paul, you were arrested in Greenland for anti whaling activities that occurred vis a vis Japan, and there was some international arrest warrant out for you. And then five months later, the authorities in Greenland set you free, saying they had no extradition treaty with, I guess, Japan, and let you go free. So that’s the good news. Tell us a little bit about that journey.

Well, it was quite complicated when I landed in nook in Greenland to refuel our ship, I was 12 Danish police officers boarded. They flew all the way from Copenhagen to do this because Japan had issued a red notice to Denmark specifically to have me arrested on a charge. It was a very minor charge, actually, of trespassing. Now, you know the red notice for Interpol is that’s set up for major serial killers and war criminals and drug dealers, and I’m the only person in the history of that to be put on there for conspiracy to trespass on a whaling ship.

Anyway, I was brought in, I was actually quite confident that it wouldn’t go anywhere, because all the evidence would demonstrate conclusively I wasn’t even there when this incident happened. So it’s a false accusation on a very minor charge from 14 years ago. So I was confident that, you know, the evidence would absolve this, but they didn’t even look at the evidence for two and a half months. So it just dragged on and dragged on and dragged on.

The courts was very frustrating. It had to appear every 28 days in court, and then it was held in prison between the times. So it’s very frustrating because nobody wanted, really wanted to act on it. Prosecutors very hostile, and in the end, she actually made the ruling to extradite, but the Minister of Justice overruled her and made the political decision to not extradite. And it was the correct one, because the evidence was on my side.

But also you came under enormous pressure from President Macron, France, Prime Minister Barnier, France, President French Polynesia, the President Lula da Silva, Brazil. A couple 100,000 people on petitions, and Jane Goodall and James Cameron and Sylvia Earle and so many people, and they just decided that politically, they better not do this.

Well, I’m glad that there was a groundswell of support such that they put the political pressure on the authorities, though, I’m thinking that a trial of you might have garnered even more sympathy worldwide, you know, because clearly the Japanese whaling fleet don’t think many people be siding with them.

Well, the trial would have taken place in Japan, where I wouldn’t have gotten a fair trial at all. I mean, Japan has a 99.9% conviction rate because you don’t even go before a judge until you confess, and they’ll interrogate you every day for months until you confess. So it’s very medieval system, and Japan was threatening to put me in prison for 15 years for this very minor offense. What this is really all about was revenge for our television show Whale Wars, which caused a lot of embarrassment for Japan.

And you can see that is very political, because they threatened Denmark with canceling offshore wind turbine projects, hundreds of millions of dollars unless they turned me over. They threatened France for supporting me. So they was. It was very, very political. And just two days ago, the Japanese foreign minister called in the Danish Ambassador Japan to reprimand him and say that Denmark betrayed Japan, and they’re not going to forget it.

That’s fascinating that the undercurrent of this goes so deep. But of course, in Japanese culture, getting shamed is a big deal, and kind of like a samurai culture that’s off with your head for that one.

Well, what we expose, and what this five months in prison gave me the opportunity to continue to expose, is Japan’s illegal operations. The killing of whales in the Southern Ocean was a violation of the International Whaling Commission’s global moratorium on commercial whaling, and that was upheld by the International Court of Justice in 2014 Japanese whaling is a criminal enterprise, and we expose that to the world.

So this is what they wanted the revenge for. But also my time in prison gave me the also the added benefit of being able to focus attention on the Danish Faro islands killing of pilot whales and dolphins, which is also illegal under the Berne Convention of the European Union. So we were able to get an incredible amount of publicity on both of those issues by five months that I spent in prison.

That’s the silver lining of this whole event, is exposure, and this kind of injustice or terrible Ecocide that these whaling fleets are committing needs to be exposed. Because I think many people just don’t know it’s even happening. What is your take on Japanese whaling currently, and is there any effort to stop it on your behalf or the behalf of others?

Well, this last summer, Japan began to target endangered fin whales. For the first time, Iceland’s taking fin whales too. We were able to stop Iceland this last summer, they didn’t kill any whales, but their intent is to go back this summer, and we’ll be prepared with our ship to intervene and to stop them. Our other vessel is in Australia, and it’s their standing guard to the approach to the Southern Ocean. If Japan returns, we will be there to stop them.

So it’s been over the last 50 years, we’ve had a lot of successes. In 1974 when I began this, whaling was taking place in countries where it’s no longer taking place. So we stopped Australia in 1977 and after that, it was South Korea and Peru and Spain and Chile and so many other countries that are no longer whaling. And so it’s really down to Norway, Iceland, Denmark and Japan, and we’ll continue to put the pressure on until we stop it.

Well, it’s surprising that those countries, which you normally think of as pretty liberal countries and pretty environmentally friendly countries, are still doing this. Why is it that fleets in Iceland and Denmark and Norway are still being allowed to go out there and kill whales.

Well, they kill whales in Norway to sell to the Japanese or also to feed to fur bearing animals on fur farms. Iceland kills whales to sell to the Japanese. And also, there’s a small market for American and European tourists who come to Reykjavik and eat whale meat in a because it’s a forbidden thing in the United States and Europe.

So they eat it in Reykjavik and Denmark while they kill the pilot whales and dolphins for fun. It’s a sport. They don’t make any money on it. Most of the bodies are after they’re killed or dumped back into the ocean. Pilot Whale and Dolphin meat is so contaminated with methylmercury that they’re only allowed to actually eat 200 grams a month by the health regulations.

It’s really interesting because you have a country like Denmark, which is so fastidious when it comes to making sure that there’s nothing tainted in their pork or their beef or whatever, but they allow them to consume meat which is heavily polluted with lead heavy metals, including methylmercury.

So that’s another story in and of itself is why these fish getting that much mercury in their system? My understanding is, the bigger the fish, the more likely they are to have mercury in their system, because they’re consuming it over a long period of time.

Well, there’s a lot of pollution in the ocean heavy metals, especially mercury. But they still don’t understand the concept. For instance, the dolphins that they kill in Japan, when they round up these dolphins and slaughter them, and they actually do it only to capture a few of them, to sell at a quarter of a million piece to aquariums around the world.

But the byproduct of that is the killing of these dolphins, which then they use the meat. They know that it’s heavily contaminated, so what they do is they feed it to pigs, and then they eat the pork, which actually has made the level even higher. So they still haven’t been able to grasp how it works, right the food chain. It does move up the food chain.

So tell us what’s next. What are you working on? And how can we support you?

Well, we’re working on those two issues with whaling, both in Japan and Iceland, working with Sea Shepherd France on numerous issues, protecting orcas, protecting turtles from being poached in the Isle of mayot and the Indian Ocean Shark programs going against super trawlers, working with Sea Shepherd Brazil to protect manatees and river dolphins there. There’s a lot of projects I’m concentrating primarily on the ships and getting those ships to stop whaling in Iceland and in the Southern Ocean.

Well, tell us a little bit about who was carrying on your work while you were in jail in your organization?

Well, there wasn’t a lot that was going on with the Captain Paul Watson foundation. But you know, we’re working in cooperation, in partnership with Sea Shepherd France and Sea Shepherd Brazil. So all of those campaigns protecting humanities and dolphins in the Amazon were still going on. And of course, Sea Shepherd France is pretty busy on anti poaching campaigns. And also a project we’re doing here is that France passed a law banning the exhibiting of cetaceans in captivity.

There’s no more dolphin shows allowed in France, but that left these two orcas that are in Marineland. Marineland doesn’t want to keep them because, well, they’re not making any money, so they’re going to ship them to Japan, but we’re able to get the French government to block that transfer so they won’t be sent to Japan. And we’re now looking at setting up a marine sanctuary in France to rehabilitate the orcas, if we can, but otherwise, protection of these there so they don’t have to spend the rest of their life doing silly tricks for human beings.

Well, that would be great to move in the right direction. So in terms of your organization, one question is, kind of the legacy? What is the legacy and how will it continue? Not that I’m predicting your demise. I’m sure you’re going to live for another 50 or 100 years, but to make sure that the work that you’re doing continues.

Well, I think the work is continuing on many, many levels. You know, the strength of an ecosystem is in diversity, therefore, the strength of an. Movement has to be in diversity, and that can be approached from the point of view of education or litigation or legislation or direct intervention. And there are literally, literally hundreds of 1000s of people who are addressing these issues around the world, and every individual can make a difference.

I mean, because of Diane Fauci, we still have mountain gorillas in Rwanda, and I know of individuals around the world who are dedicating their lives or protecting a particular species or protecting that threatened habitat, that’s what makes a movement. Because of that diversity and that interdependence of people in the movement, just like in the environment, that’s what’s making a difference. And so we really shouldn’t depend upon this organization or that organization.

People should get involved with organizations, but also by themselves as individuals to get involved, and we’re all empowered to do that. According to the United Nations World Charter for nature, every individual and non government organization is empowered to uphold international conservation law, and I’ve used that quite effectively in the court of law. So there’s a lot of work to do. People can volunteer for Sea Shepherd France, Sea Shepherd Brazil, the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, or they can find out, what are you passionate about, and then use your skills and your abilities to address that passion.

The three virtues that can change the world are courage, passion and imagination. Get those three things together, and it’s amazing what you can achieve. I’ve always said that the solution to an impossible problem is to find the impossible solution, and you can have to make the impossible possible. That’s a

brilliant little soliloquy there, I think, on many different levels. One is, hey, everybody needs to get involved. It’s not just for leaders, and we’re shouldn’t be just relying upon you or others who are in the forefront of the movement to do everything. All of us have a role to play and to step in and start doing it.

Well, why everybody should get involved is it’s in their interest to do so, because when we look at what’s happening in the ocean, our oceans are dying, and we don’t live on this planet with a dead ocean.

You know, since 1950 there’s been a 40% diminishment in phytoplankton in the sea, and phytoplankton provides up to 70% of the oxygen in the air we breathe, and sequesters enormous amounts of CO two and the reason that phytoplankton is being diminished is because we’re diminishing the population of whales and dolphins and sea birds as turtles, fishes and those species provide the nutrient base for the phytoplankton, the iron, the nitrogen, then the magnesium, which is required for phytoplankton to flourish.

So if you look at it this way, whales, aside from being incredibly intelligent and beautiful creatures, also are the farmers of the ocean. They’re actually fertilizing these giant crops of phytoplankton with their feces. You know, every day a blue whale defecates three tons into the sea, very rich with all those nutrients. So when you diminish diversity in the sea, you diminish that interdependence, and that leads to ecological collapse. If phytoplankton disappears from the sea, tomorrow, we all die.

We don’t live on this planet without phytoplankton. It produces 70% of the oxygen compared to all the vegetation and trees producing the other 30% so we have to accept that as a reality. Unfortunately, most people choose to be ignorant of it and don’t pay much too much attention to it.

On that front, it seems we talked about this before, but reduction or elimination of eating fish and that basically, fisheries are not sustainable in the way that they’re being farmed, and if people eat less fish, that’s going to increase the diversity of the ocean and the health of the ocean.

There is no sustainable fishery on this planet anymore. I said in 2015 if we want to protect the ocean, we have to shut down all of the commercial, heavy gear, industrialized fishing operations, because we’re over fishing the sea, and we diminish one species move on to the next. Like, for instance, in the 1990s orange roughy was a very commercially popular fish.

It was caught in the waters off of New Zealand, but it was available worldwide. You don’t see it in the markets anymore, because orange roughy takes 45 years to become sexually mature and lives to be about 200 years of age. You couldn’t keep up with our demand, and we just wipe them out. They’re still there, but not enough to make it commercially viable. We’ve seen the collapse in the northern cod in the North Atlantic, and that and pretty much every species that is under incredible stress because there is no enforcement of international regulations.

Bluefin Tuna has been reduced by 90% we kill about 100 million sharks every year, and 40% of all of the fish that’s taken from the sea isn’t even eaten by people, is ground up into fish meal and fed to chickens and pigs and salmon farms and fur farms. So we’re literally eating the oceans alive.

It’s disgusting how much we’re taking and how greedy we are, and how thoughtless and kind of without any foresight of what the consequences are. What’s the way we can get the word out to more effectively, to have people get this message?

I’m always felt that, you know, the most powerful weapon on the planet is a camera. So you just got to document things, get it out there. And sometimes it’s difficult. You’re dealing with the media just getting out the facts and figures, that’s not a story. So you have to dramatize the issue. That’s one of the reasons we did the Whale Wars show, is to dramatize what we’re doing. And you know, there’s four elements of media.

Every media story has four basic elements, and they’re broken down quite easily into sex, scandal, violence and celebrity. If you want a story, you have to have one or more of those elements. And if you have all four, you got yourself a super story. I learned that back in 1977 when I brought Brigid Bardo to the ice flows off of Labrador to protect seals.

And you know, we had the violence of them killing seals, and we had the scandal of all the corruption that was involved in the industry. And she gave us the other two elements, and just having her out there posing cheek to cheek with the baby seal guaranteed us the cover of every major magazine in the world. So when you control those elements, you can control the story.

So what’s next for you on the media? Front any thoughts of putting this in front of cameras?

We’re working on trying to get a motion picture together, a documentary together, working on some books. Actually, I actually wrote a children’s book last year. I’m going to do another one this year. I think that’s really important to do children’s books. And of course, we’re getting an incredible amount of media in the in the mainstream media and as well as in socials and that. So it’s all of it is about getting that information out, what’s happening to our ocean, what we can do to protect life in the sea.

So what will the documentary be about. I mean, I have general understanding of what you probably should but maybe there’s something specific that you’re going for.

Well, we’ve been making documentaries over the years. They’re everything from seaspiracy to chasing the thunder to what they made, one about me called Watson, one about turtles called there’s only one. So it’s an ongoing process, and we’ll be doing films about the river dolphins and the manatees in Amazonia, a lot of projects there. And of course, again, it’s illustrating that the camera is the most powerful weapon, and we have to use it in order to not only educate people, but also to expose and also use it as a way to defend ourselves when we’re charged.

That’s why I’m not concerned when I get to charge with anything, because we go into court and said, Well, here’s the evidence. Everything’s on camera. So you can make all the accusations you want, but unless you if you can counter what we’ve just recorded on camera, then you’re not going to really get very far.

And that’s what happened in this case, is that we recorded everything, and everything they said was countered by the fact that there were images to convey the truth, and one of the things that the Japanese were doing were just blatantly lying about all of the facts and everything like this. And so became very, very obvious that that’s what they’re doing. When I was arrested in nook, it was 12 Danish police officers boarding my ship to arrest me.

Why did it take 12? Because in the description on the red notice by Japan, I’m described as an armed and extremely dangerous eco terrorists. So of course, they can only going to overreact when the description is that way. And actually people say, are you an eco terrorist? I never worked for Monsanto. I’ve never worked for BP. I’m not an eco terrorist. In fact, I don’t know of anybody who is an eco terrorist. Eco terrorism, to me, means terrorizing the environment, destroying this planet, and we certainly got a lot of perpetrators in that area.

Certainly, Exxon and the big oil companies would all fall into that category based upon their conduct. What are your thoughts on the incoming Trump administration, and what can we do with that coming down the pike?

You know, I really don’t think it makes any difference in the long run, whether it’s the Democrats or the Republicans. It’s still in the pockets of big business, of the oil companies, pharmaceutical companies, they’re still calling the shops. It just changed the, you know, the dressing every once in a while in the windows, but it’s still the same thing. I mean, now we have the cop conferences are being controlled by the oil companies.

I mean, they’re just a joke, really, to have them hosted in Dubai and places where the oil industry is controlling the narrative. I don’t even know why you even bother on that. And you know, everything we’ve predicted about climate change is happening. I mean, I wrote in 2015 in my book urgent. You know, there’s going to be an increase in storms and there’s going to be an increase in wildfires, I say, Australia and Spain, and, of course, Los Angeles. Not that people didn’t know. It’s not that people weren’t warned.

They just didn’t pay attention, right? Unfortunately, not enough action was taken to counter this. And of course, Exxon knew. They knew, and they put it in their own reports. In the 70s and early 80s, they predicted that CO two levels would get up to 420, 30 parts per million by the 2020, and that it would have catastrophic effects on the climate. And they just buried that report and continued to pollute full steam ahead.

Oil and coal companies actually made these predictions in 1911 when they were doing studies into it, saying, Well, this is what to happen, and it’s exactly what’s what happened. But still so much climate denying in politics. I think that the public is probably far more educated than the politicians are, but I have to the problem with politicians and government is this, if they try to do anything, then they’re going to be thrown out. Because nobody really wants to lower their standards of living.

They don’t want to make the sacrifices. And any politician who advances that is going to be treading on very dangerous ground politically. So I don’t think that the problems can be solved politically. I think it has to be solved through the passion, the courage and the imagination of individuals and and organizations, and usually the smaller organizations, because the bigger the organization, the more they become co opted and become part of the problem.

Well, certainly you see with Biden is that he passed the IRA, which was a good environmental law. It was certainly the best we’ve had in some time here in the US. And you know, he gets thrown out on his ear after the party. And Harris, but she didn’t really campaign on the IRA. She was, I think she was too afraid to touch it.

She rarely talked about it, yeah, well, that’s the thing that politicians are afraid to campaign on any environmental issues. Now, very ironically, the Trump administration will probably be doing more because of JFK Bobby Kennedy, Jr, who is an environmentalist. Let’s just see how long Crump will listen to him if he does. But I don’t think things change with government, really, but I do see the advantage of the Trump administration is they’re going to disrupt the entire system, and maybe that’ll be the awakening we all need to try and get common sense back into politics.

Well, I always think that you may tank the whole thing so badly that people wake up. But you know, who knows? Who knows what will happen. But I guess my sense of the last trump administration is that localities and states woke up and they started taking more action. California took more aggressive action against the climate, and many other states did as well. So they kind of stopped outsourcing their autonomy to Washington and saying, Hey, Washington, do it for us. So that’s a positive.

Well, yeah, and there are people striving on many levels again, through legislation, through litigation, through education, all of those things are addressing the problem as best as people can do it. One of the board of advice have to people who get very depressed about all this or pessimistic is don’t be because you don’t have any power over the future at all. All of your power is in the present.

So you really have to concentrate on doing what you can in the present, because of what you do in the present will define what the future will be, but that’s the only way you can really approach this, because if you start looking at all of the potential problems, you’re going to get depressed. But I find that when people embrace a cause, whether it be protecting a species or protecting a habitat or addressing climate change, or when they embrace a cause, it gives them that passion.

It gives them that encouragement and motivation to actually do things and to not be deterred by people telling you, oh, you can’t do that, or that’s impossible. And I’m seeing more and more of that, but at the same time, I’m seeing a lot of repression on the part of governments.

You know, laws are becoming more restrictive, you know, and people can go be put in prison for two years for throwing red paint on a painting, even though that painting was covered with glass, it was a protest and didn’t damage the painting, but they got two years in prison for that. In the UK, people in Germany have been arrested in their house before they’ve gone to a demonstration because on the internet, they were being prepared to go there, they’re monitored, and they get arrested before the demonstration takes place.

And we’re going to see more and more of that that happening as things become more diminished, then repression will be the natural response to that, from corporations and, of course, governments, but governments are controlled by the corporations.

Well, I totally agree with people need to take action and certainly live in the present. That’s all we have, and do our best with what’s in front of us. I really like your statement about courage, passion and imagination, or three powers that working together can create magical change, essentially. So we need to keep focusing on that versus living in pessimism.

Well, good example of imagination and the camera being used in a very positive way as a film that was made last year called how to blow up a pipeline. Now, what was so great about that film is nobody actually blew up a pipeline, but they certainly got the message about it, and certainly sent a shock wave through the fossil fuel industry, to the point where the FBI were investigating whether to arrest these people who were making a film, but they actually couldn’t do it, because they didn’t really do anything wrong.

They didn’t break any laws, but they certainly got the point across, and that was the whole objective. I think that’s really where we have a lot of power, is to use media in that way. And you know, when you look at motion picture history, for instance, a Free Willy and the impact that had Three Mile Island, the impact that had so motion pictures are a very powerful way of conveying that kind of information and influencing people more than anything. So I see a lot of potential for people to actually change things through motion pictures, through documetaries.

What about civil disobedience? What types of civil disobedience Have you seen that are particularly effective?

I think that you know, if people have the freedom to choose which way they approach, I’ve now, I’ve always chosen to operate within the law, because we don’t protest. We intervene against illegal activities. People think we’re protesting, but our opposition are illegal activities, illegal whaling, illegal ceiling, that kind of thing. But the problem with civil disobedience here is that it’s controlled by the governments. If you commit an act of civil disobedience, you can be arrested now you’ve got a criminal record, probably won’t get a passport.

So there’s a lot of things that people should take into account before they do it, but at the same time, I can see how the frustration within our society would lead people to do that, and the environmental movement has been one of the most non violent movements in the history of the planet.

It’s worldwide, and it’s I don’t know if anybody’s ever been killed by by an environmentalist, but we’re being more and more being condemned as terrorists. Anytime you do something today that people disagree with governments, disagree with corporations, disagree with you’re now labeled a terrorist. The word has become absolutely meaningless because of that, and so that frustration could lead to a more violent response.

Now, I hope not, but I think when you get to population continues to increase, resources continue to be diminished. We’re looking at a kind of world as what was illustrated in that movie, soil and green, for example, is a good read, that kind of dystopian thing which was going to lead to a violent response. And violent reactions are becoming more and more around the world, not necessarily here or there.

But for instance, where we got Gaza, we got Ukraine, we got Africa, so many places in that because environment is going to force environmental refugees out of the places where they can’t live into places where they’re not welcome, and that’s going to lead to a lot more hostility, and of course, violence. It’s not their fault, but that’s those kind of pressures are going to cause that kind of problem.

And of course, it’s leading, and we’re seeing right now to the emergence of a lot of right wing governments as response to ecological refugees and environmentalists in general. So that’s going to be increasingly more and more more of a problem in terms of non violent protests.

We had Martin Luther King and Gandhi were certainly non violent protests that were ultimately very successful in the domain that they were seeking reform. Of who do you see as kind of your Mount Rushmore of nonviolent leaders in the environmental movement, or just, you know, environmentalists in general?

Well, nonviolence can only work if you understand the, you know, the arena that you’re operating in. It worked for Gandhi for a very simple reason. He was engaging the British and he humiliated them because he shamed them because of his activities. He was more righteous than they thought they were. Gandhi himself even said that if a Gandhi in Nazi Germany, a Gandhi in Stalinist Russia, you would never have heard of them. They would have been put up against a wall and shot. So you have to gage your enemy and say, can this work? Can this nonviolent strategy work? And the only way it can work is if you get sympathy from the population at large, and that will be your defense, your protection.

You know, I was working as a medic for the American Indian Movement back in 1973 during the occupation of Wounded Knee and Dennis Banks Russell, means John Trudell, what they decided to do is become movie actors, and that has how they protected themselves. It’s easy to take them out if you’re just a citizen, but you become a movie actor now you’re a celebrity.

And our culture reveres celebrities for some strange reason, and that became their protection. So everything situation you have to look at and say, What can I do to make this work for the cause? And that takes a lot of imagination, I think absolutely well.

You know, always a pleasure to have you on the program, Captain Paul, and look forward to following you as you go forward. Tell us a little bit about how people can follow you, how they can contribute. Maybe check out Whale Wars on cable TV and all the rest well.

Of course, in this day and age, it’s pretty easy to get in contact with organizations, and so I would suggest people look up the Captain Paul Watson foundation on the internet and on socials, and the same with Sea Shepherd France and Sea Shepherd Brazil.

The reason I’m saying that is that there was a hostile takeover of the Sea Shepherd movement, and I was forced out of the organization for being too controversial and too confrontational, and the they decided, the people who forced me out in this hostile takeover decided they wanted to be mainstream, because while it’s better for job security, and now they had, after 50 years of me building this up, they now had very comfortable jobs.

I mean, they offered me a considerable amount of money just to be a figurehead who said nothing and does nothing. And that’s not why I set up this movement, but Sea Shepherd France and Sea Shepherd Brazil chose to be loyal to the original objectives and strategies of the Sea Shepherd movement. So that carries on. So I’m can. Continuing to work with my foundation and those two Sea Shepherd groups. And the reason I set up the captain wall Paul Watson foundation is I wasn’t allowed to work in the US or anything with the name Sea Shepherd which I created, or the logos which I designed.

And they sued me. And in fact, they even tried to sue me to prevent me from using my own name, saying that would create confusion amongst their supporters, but they didn’t win on that one, but we’re challenging them and everything. Because unfortunately, Sea Shepherd global has become extremely corrupt, and I guess that happens to a lot of organizations. I never think I thought it would happen to Sea Shepherd, because I always consider Sea Shepherd to be a movement.

But you know, behind the scenes, people are filing for trademarks and copyrights. The next thing you know, they control everything, and this red notice that the Japanese put against me actually assisted them, because they use that to move me off the board of directors, by saying that I was a threat to their directors insurance or something because of this red notice.

So but you know, I’m not gonna let any of that kind of stuff deter me from what I’m doing. Making money has never been important. Why would it be important to anybody, when you look at what’s happening to the planet, I mean, what’s, what’s a good of money, if, if everything around you is being destroyed.

Absolutely. So yeah, I appreciate you continuing to, you know, work for these issues and the amazing things that you’ve done with courage, imagination and passion. Everybody should follow Captain Paul Watson and his foundation and the work that he’s doing with Sea Shepherd and France and Brazil, amazing work.

So thank you again for being on the show, and we look forward to seeing many great things come out of the work that you’re doing well.

Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.

(Note: this is an automatic transcription and may have errors in formatting and grammar.)

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