Sea Shepherd Conservation Society: Difference between revisions

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is a non-profit, registered tax-exempt organization in the United States, and a registered Stichting (foundation) in The Netherlands. It is based in Friday Harbor, WA in the United States, and in Melbourne, Australia for its Southern Hemisphere operations. Members call themselves eco-pirates, undertaking campaigns that the society says are guided by the United Nations World Charter for Nature (1982) and other statutory laws protecting marine species and environments.^[1][2] It operates a fleet of three vessels it calls "Neptune's Navy": the RV Farley Mowat, the MV Steve Irwin, and the RV Sirenian, as well as several smaller boats.^[3]

The society was founded in 1977 by Paul Watson,one of the three founders of Greenpeace, after he concluded that "bearing witness" to environmental damage was an inadequate response compared to actual enforcement of international laws, regulations, and treaties.^[4]

In contrast to Greenpeace, which maintains a policy of avoiding causing damage to whaling ships in the oceans, Sea Shepherd endorses a deliberate policy of sinking or sabotaging vessels they believe have violated international whaling law.^[5] As a result, Greenpeace has officially disavowed any connection to Sea Shepherd and refused to assist their efforts, stating "... we are not going to help people who have said they will use violence. We are here to save the whale, not put the lives of whalers at risk."^[6]

Sea Shepherd engages in direct actions to protect such marine wildlife as seals, dolphins and whales. These have included more conventional protests, as well as, at times, scuttling and sinking fishing boats engaged in fishery operations while in harbor, sabotage of vessels in harbor, ramming the whaling ship Sierra in Portuguese harbor,^[7] and seizure and destruction of drift nets at sea. Sea Shepherd has also conducted an intense media campaign against Japanese high-seas whaling and the Canadian sealing industry in particular. Despite the more direct nature of such actions (as contrasted with the actions of groups such as Greenpeace), there have been few reports of injuries and no reports of deaths during Sea Shepherd actions. The most recent injury report was made by two Japanese crewmen who claim being splashed with foul-smelling butyric acid during Sea Shepherd's February 2007 action in the Ross Sea.^[8] The Sea Shepherds admitted to throwing six one-litre bottles of butyric acid onto the deck of the Nisshin Maru although founder Paul Watson claims that none of the Japanese crew could have been harmed, saying that butyric acid is "a simple non-toxic butter acid, basically rancid butter".^[9] However, industrial safety data sheets warn of the corrosive properties of the acid, which can burn skin and eyes^[10] and harm aquatic organisms.^[11]

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World Charter for Nature

Sea Shepherd bases its actions on enforcement of international maritime law under the United Nations World Charter for Nature; however, the organization has no official mandate or authorization to enforce any legislation. Sea Shepherd was deprived of its status as an International Whaling Commission observer after sinking Icelandic vessels in 1986. In 1994, IWC Secretary Ray Gambell stated "the IWC and all its members ardently condemn Sea Shepherd's acts of terrorism."^[12] In 2006 the outgoing Vice Chair of the IWC, Horst Kleinschmidt, joined the Board of Sea Shepherd as an advisor. Sea Shepherd is supported by private and corporate donations and operated by volunteers and paid staff, including Watson's current wife. Critics, including its targets, refer to the organization as "pirate[s]" and "terrorist[s]",^[8] and consider Sea Shepherd's harassment of targeted fishing and resource-extraction operations to be outside the law. However, Sea Shepherd believe they have a good understanding of the law and operate openly in the UK (where Sea Shepherd UK has charity status^[13]) and other countries.

Until recently, countries such as Australia have hesitated to pressure Japan to stop whaling because of concerns about harming trade relations.^[14] Sea Shepherd supporters claim that small countries in the IWC that support whaling have been bought by Japanese development aid.^{[citation needed]} Japan is behind only the US as an aid donor.^[15] However, the former Australian environment minister, Ian Campbell, stated that the activities of Sea Shepherd "puts the cause of conservation backwards" and urged the organisation to "comply with the law of the sea and not do anything to put at risk other vessels on the high seas and therefore human life".^[16] Moreover, many new members of EU as well as South American countries are allegedly being pressured to join by countries with a preservationist stance.^[17]

In the course of these operations, associates of Sea Shepherd have been threatened, endangered, imprisoned and tried for commission of crimes on the high seas including maritime piracy. Paul Watson, the founder of the group, was arrested in 1993 in Canada on charges stemming from actions against Cuban and Spanish fishing boats off the coast of Newfoundland; but he was found not guilty through relying on Canadian ratification of the UN Charter for Nature (1982).^{[citation needed]} In 1997, he was convicted in absentia in Norway on charges of sinking a Norwegian whaling ship, and spent 80 days in jail in the Netherlands, but he was not extradited to face new charges related to the encounter with the Norwegian Coast Guard vessel Andenes in 1994.^{[citation needed]} Costa Rica filed attempted murder charges against Watson for an incident after he caught a Costa Rican fishing boat poaching, but charges were dropped after prosecutors were shown a film of the incident that was shot by a team making a documentary of Sea Shepherd.^[18]

Another Animal rights activist, Rod Coronado, who has also had numerous legal problems stemming from his activism, got his start in activism with Sea Shepherd, participating in one of its best-known and most controversial actions, the scuttling of two ships from Iceland's whaling fleet while in port in 1986.

As a result of such activities, several nations, including Japan, have pressed the United States to declare Sea Shepherd a terrorist organization. However, others are more co-operative, and Sea Shepherd currently has working agreements with several countries, including Ecuador, Costa Rica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Indonesia, to help those countries fight poaching.^{[citation needed]}

Sea Shepherd operations include interdiction against whaling in Antarctic waters of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary of the Southern Ocean, patrols of the Galapagos Islands, and action against Canadian seal hunters.^{[5][4][19][20]} Sea Shepherd has an affiliated organization, O.R.C.A. Force whose president is Watson.^[21]

Sea Shepherd claims to have sunk ten whaling ships since 1979, referring to these ships as "pirates".^[22] The claimed attacks include:

• 1979 – the whaler Sierra rammed and sunk in Portugal;
• 1980 – the whalers Isba I and Isba II sunk in Vigo, Spain;
• 1980 – the whalers Susan and Theresa sunk in South Africa;
• 1986 – the whaling ships Hvalur 6 and Hvalur 7 sunk in Iceland;
• 1992 – the whaler Nybraena sunk in Norway;
• 1994 – the whaler Senet sunk in Norway;
• 1998 – the whaler Morild sunk in Norway.

In 2007, two ships operated by Sea Shepherd (Farley Mowat and Robert Hunter) were struck off the shipping registers of Belize and Britain.^[5] Later on that year, the ships received the flag of the Kahnawake Mohawk nation.^[23] According to a November 2007 piece in The New Yorker, however, both ships now sail under the Dutch flag.^[24]

In December 2007, the ship Robert Hunter was renamed the Steve Irwin.^[25]

Sea Shepherd's current priorities are a permanent naval patrol in the Galapagos Islands to protect sea turtles and other marine wildlife, and a campaign against the 2005 seal hunt in Canada, which includes a boycott of Canadian seafood products.

Between December 2005 and January 2006 Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace vessels were in the Southern Ocean to confront Japanese whalers. Sea Shepherd declared that they would do whatever they considered necessary to prevent the whaling, even if it meant losing their ship. The Farley Mowat rammed a Japanese supply ship called the Oriental Bluebird. On January 16 the organisation declared that their fuel supplies had run out and that they were heading to shore. They claimed credit for chasing the whalers from whaling grounds and hindering operations for over 15 days.^[26]

In February 2007, the Robert Hunter and Farley Mowat participated in Operation Leviathan by surrounding the Japanese whaling vessel Kaiko Maru to attempt to prevent the vessel from continuing its hunting. Sea Shepherd members threw bottles of butyric acid onto the decks of the Kaiko Maru and one whaler was injured by broken piece of glass and another received medical treatment for his eye.^[27] The Robert Hunter and Farley Mowat obstructed the path of the whaling boat,^[28] and the Robert Hunter and Kaiko Maru collided with each other. The Robert Hunter suffered a three-foot gash in the hull above the waterline at the stern of the ship.^[29]

In May 2007 Farley Mowat was claimed to be heading toward Iceland in response to the 2006 plan to hunt nine fin and sixty Minke whales out of estimated populations of 28,500 and 179,000 respectively. The ship never arrived.^[30]

The recent 2007–08 Antarctic campaign was named Operation Migaloo, after the only known albino humpback in the world. ^[31]

On January 15 2008, after attempting to entangle the hunting boat's propeller and throwing bottles of butyric acid onto the decks^[32], two Sea Shepherd members Benjamin Potts and Giles Lane from the Sea Shepherd vessel MV Steve Irwin boarded the Japanese whale-hunting ship Yushin Maru No. 2 in the High Seas^[33] of the Antarctic Ocean, using a Zodiac inflatable boat^[34]. The crew of the Yushin Maru No. 2 detained the two men for illegal boarding and vandalism.

Sea Shepherd stated that the pair were attempting to deliver a letter of protest, after many hours during which the Japanese vessels refused to acknowledge any radio contact, with the news that the Japanese whale hunt in Australia's Antarctic waters and Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary had earlier in the day been ruled illegal by the Australian Federal Court. The Japanese government response was that it did not recognize the judgment, and that the boarding was illegal. The two men were released from the Japanese ship 17 January, and were handed over to the Australian customs vessel MV Oceanic Viking.^[35][36] The Australian government decided to release them the same day without criminal charges because they "apparently had no intention to commit malicious crimes, such as robbery."^[32]

On March 29 2008 the M/V Farley Mowat and a Canadian Coast Guard ship collided while the M/V Farley Mowat was observing the Canadian seal hunts. This incident led to the arrest of the captain and first officer of the ship on April 12, 2008.^[37]

On April 12, 2008, during the 2008 Canadian commercial seal hunt, the M/V Farley Mowat was raided by Canadian coast guard vessels after the ship was said to have encroached on seal hunters off the coast of Newfoundland.^[38] During the raid, the captain and first officer were arrested and are awaiting charges.^[39] The captain stated that the capture was an outrage, "How dare they board a foreign vessel in international waters, a Dutch-registered vessel with a Dutch captain? They held the entire crew at gunpoint."^[40] However Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn said "The boat was in Canadian territorial waters"^[41]

Sea Shepherd has been criticised for dangerous protests and cutting driftnets, and accused of piracy. Its critics include Greenpeace and the Institute of Cetacean Research.

James F. Jarboe, the Domestic Terrorism Section Chief for the FBI's Counterterrorism Division.^[42] gave congressional testimony on February 12 2002 that since the forming of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society in 1977, acts of eco-terrorism have occurred around the globe.^[42]

Supporters and endorsers of Sea Shepherd include well known people such as Richard Dean Anderson, who was named a board member of the group^[43] and Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama^[44].

• Paul Watson, Earthforce! An Earth Warrior's Guide to Strategy (Los Angeles: Chaco Press, 1993). ISBN 0-9616019-5-7
• Paul Watson, Ocean Warrior: My Battle to End the Illegal Slaughter on the High Seas (1994; Key Porter Books, 1996). ISBN 978-1550135992
• Paul Watson, Seal Wars: Twenty-five Years in the Front Lines with the Harp Seals (2002; Firefly Books, 2003). ISBN 978-1552977514
• David B. Morris, Earth Warrior: Overboard with Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, 1995). ISBN 1-55591-203-6
• Neptune's Manifesto: How a few good pirates can save the oceans. Whole Earth Review, Fall 1998.
• Rik Scarce, Eco-Warriors: Understanding the Radical Environmental Movement, second revised ed. (1990; Left Coast Press, 2005), Ch. 6. ISBN 978-1598740288

• Rod Coronado
• Animal Rights
• Environmental Terrorism
• Eco-terrorism
• Law of the Sea
• International Law Enforcement

Wikinews has related news:

• Protester says Japanese whalers shot him

• Sea Shepherd Conservation Society website
• "The Whale Warriors" by Peter Heller National Geographic Adventure May 2006 Pages 58-64 and 95-100.
• "Sea Shepherd's Record of Violence" at the High North Alliance
• "Sea Shepherd's Violent History" at the Institute of Cetacean Research