From Paul Watson Eco-Warrior Paul Watson, Brings Sea Shepherds to Vermont m.sevendaysvt/vermont/eco-warrior-paul-watson-is-living-in-vermont/Content?oid=2389181 by Alicia Freese @aliciafreese | June 25, 2014 Alicia Freese-Paul Watson greets fellow Shepherds in Woodstock Last Saturday, more than 100 people — nearly all of them wearing black — sat in the shade of a tent on a sun-drenched estate in South Woodstock watching video footage of de-finned shark carcasses. Parked in front of a nearby barn was an RV emblazoned with a giant Jolly Roger.Landlocked Vermont played host to the first global gathering of a group of hardline anti-marine-poaching activists: the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.The Sea Shepherds, whose brazen tactics were captured on the Animal Planet reality show Whale Wars, are best known for using direct action to thwart Japanese whaling ships in the Antarctic Ocean. Direct action, in this case, refers to everything from ramming whaling ships to throwing stink bombs on board.There was a lot of hugging on the first morning of the three-day summit. Some attendees had spent months together at sea in but hadnt seen one other in years. They had come from Texas and Virginia and places farther flung — Canada, South Africa, Brazil, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Sweden and the Netherlands.Courtesy of Sea Shepherd Conservation SocietyA Sea Shepherd vessel, Steve Irwin, nearly collides with the Yushin MaruSea Shepherds critics — including one U.S. federal judge — have described them as pirates, and some tanned, tattooed men visually fit the bill. But they mingled with a mother from Seattle, a blond flight attendant from Australia, twins in oversize sunglasses, leggings and red lipstick, elderly men, and other ordinary-looking people.Conversation was less ordinary: He taught me to stargaze during the 1983 seal campaign! a woman in her sixties said, pointing to Al Jet Johnson, a retired American Airlines pilot who looks the part — blue tinted aviators, periwinkle cardigan slung over his shoulder, black polo, creased khakis.Also overheard: When I was in Malaysia last week doing coral propagation...Away from the socializing, a portly, white-haired man in a blue shirt sat watching his granddaughter play with a plate of cheerios: Paul Watson — cult hero and celebrity darling — is one of the most notorious environmental activists in the world. The 63-year-old landed on INTERPOLs Red Notice list after Japan and Costa Rica accused him of damaging property and breaking into a vessel.Watson started the Sea Shepherds in the 70s, after Greenpeace expelled him for being too radical. He said he likes to think of his group as the ladies of the night of the conservation movement because people agree with us, but they dont want to be seen with us. The groups identity remains very much entwined with its eco-warrior-in-chief, and members gathered here last weekend because Watson lives in Vermont now.Hes been land-bound since December 2012, when Japan succeeded in bringing an injunction against him and Sea Shepherd USA, preventing both the man and the organization from approaching within 500 feet of their ships. Fifteen months later, the International Court of Justice deemed Japans whaling trips illegal, but Watson said he still had to cede his spot at the organizations helm out of legal necessity.In response, the group has been cultivating international offshoots. Its already active in 40 countries, according to Watson, and Sea Shepherd Australia has become its largest operation. Each affiliate is legally distinct by design — so one lawsuit cant bring down the whole organization — and the summit was intended to share information and strengthen ties between them. A cluster of tents, where most members were camping, occupied a nearby hillside.The overarching message of the weekend: Sea Shepherd is a movement, not a man or an organization. And that movement has an operating budget of roughly $12 million, Watson said in an interview. It also has 2,000 applications from people who want to crew the five Sea Shepherd ships. Total membership? I have no idea, Watson said. Other staffers couldnt provide specific numbers, either.Members spent most of Saturday under the white tent, getting briefed on current Sea Shepherd campaigns: documenting dolphin slaughter in Japan; opposing shark finning in China; working with the Senegalese government to stop fish poachers.I can wake up in the morning and hear about a Sea Shepherd campaign I didnt even know about, Watson told the crowd.Roger Payne, the biologist who discovered that humpback whales sing, was there. Hes a longtime whale conservationist and adviser to the Sea Shepherds.Johnson, whos been a Sea Shepherd since the start — he left Greenpeace when Watson was ousted — made the trek from Vancouver. In his younger days, he said, he paint-bombed a Soviet ship, flew recon for seal campaigns and dropped parachutists onto a nuclear power plant. Asked for further detail, he responded, Oh, you can google the rest of it. These days, hes on standby — Time to step aside for the younger people.Younger people such as Peter Hammarstedt of Sweden. He joined the Sea Shepherds as a deckhand when he was 18, worked his way up to be Watsons first mate and then, three years ago, became captain. Now 29, hes been on all nine of Sea Shepherds Antarctic campaigns against Japanese whalers.With his boyish face, glasses and sparse facial hair, Hammarstedt looks more like a software engineer than a captain, but hes proven his skills at sea. During a recent Antarctic campaign, he steered his ship in between a whaling vessel and a tanker, preventing the former from refueling. Dramatic footage shows the Sea Shepherd ship, Bob Barker, colliding repeatedly with the two much larger vessels.Not all the presentations were as harrowing as Hammarstedts. Gary Stokes of Hong Kong, whos leading the campaign against shark hunting in China, spoke about his efforts to persuade companies such as Groupon to stop advertising shark-cartilage supplements. Its not zipping around in a Zodiac, Stokes admitted, referencing the activist organizations boat brand of choice.Kristen Hall joined the group four months ago as an on-shore volunteer in Minneapolis. At her day job, she works in marketing for Ameriprise Financial. Wearing a necklace with a sterling turtle pendant, she admits watching Whale Wars makes her anxious.We evolve in accordance with the imagination of the volunteers, Watson said during an interview. Today, the Sea Shepherds are partnering with the songwriter and producer Pharrell Williams in what Watson described as our most ambitious campaign right now. The Sea Shepherds task is to figure out how to extract plastics from the oceans; Williams role is to make clothing from it.The groups whale rescues have always overshadowed the rest of its work, Watson said, but they also help bankroll less compelling campaigns. We just rescued sea urchins off the coast of Sicily. No one wants to talk about that.Watson speaks in seamless run-on sentences, blending apocalyptic statements — The oceans are dying, and if the oceans die, we die — with political commentary. Tony Abbott makes George Bush look like a raving intellectual, he said, taking a swipe at Australias prime minister.While sidelined, Watson is writing his seventh and eighth books, one of which describes a Confederate campaign to sink Union whaling vessels that had the inadvertent effect of saving three species of whale from extinction, according to the author. My role model is James Wadell, the captain of theShenandoah. He sank 37 whaling ships, didnt hurt anybody.The only water in sight on Saturday was a pond, and swimming wasnt permitted — The ponds belong to the frogs, and they dont like your sunscreen, Watson told the group. Pritam Singh and Ann Johnston, longtime Sea Shepherd supporters, offered up their land for the event. The owners of a real estate development company in the Florida Keys, the couple met Watson more than two decades ago when he was in the Keys looking for a place to put his ship. Singh and Johnston let him tie up at their dock.Planned activities throughout the weekend included: a drone demonstration — Shepherds use them for recon and to take photos — meditation time, a talk on veganism and a Media 101 session. Between the reality TV show and the 2007 New Yorkerprofile of Watson, it seems the Shepherds are getting plenty of publicity.On that subject, Watson overruled his own media director, who askedSeven Days not to reveal where hes living: South Woodstock. Shes paranoid, said Watson, waving off her concern. Im not wanted for anything in this country. m.sevendaysvt/vermont/eco-warrior-paul-watson-is-living-in-vermont/Content?oid=2389181
Posted on: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 05:19:42 +0000
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