FREE PAUL WATSON

The Call of the Southern Ocean

Paul Watson – Source: Paul Watson Foundation

One person who can speak the captor’s language is Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and more recently, the Paul Watson Foundation. Paul is a man on a mission and has been for most of his adult life.  

In an interview Paul summarised his philosophy: “We are part of the earth, not lord and master over it. We have to respect the interrelationships with all other species.”

In 2005, equipped with a couple of boats and a crew of volunteers, Paul set sail for the Southern Ocean to stop illegal Japanese whaling. International law prohibits commercial whaling in the area, and Paul and his volunteers intervened. They saved eighty whales from being killed. Honing their skills, they saved a further 500 during the 2006/7 hunting season. Paul and his crew remained in the chilly southern waters until the Japanese whaling fleet finally withdrew in 2018. It was a resounding victory for defenders of animal rights, and validation of the use of direct action.

Paul should have been thanked for enforcing marine law – instead, he was arrested in July of this year on a dubious alert notice issued by Japan and executed by Greenland, a territory of Denmark. The arrest centres on historic claims of  interference with Japan’s whaling fleet, the fleet that was operating illegally.

Paul’s next court hearing is on Monday December 2nd, when Japan will seek his extradition. Coincidently, Monday is his seventy-fourth birthday. It appears the nets of oppression so readily used in our seas and oceans are now reaching onto our shores, ensnaring those who dare speak in a language the captors understand.

©2024 Sul Nowroz – Real Media staff writer