Beyond the UN Ocean Conference: A Captain's Call to Action - Captain Paul Watson, from Paris

Captain Paul Watson speaks with us from Paris about his experiences at the UN Ocean Conference, meetings with global leaders including President Macron, and his continued ocean conservation efforts after his release from a Greenland prison.

• The UN Ocean Conference yielded a major victory with 64 countries ratifying the High Seas Treaty, providing additional legal protection for ocean interventions
• Captain Paul met with French President Macron, the Mayor of Reykjavik, the President of French Polynesia, and Brazil's Environment Minister to discuss marine conservation
• Whaling in Iceland has been paused for three consecutive years, signaling a potential permanent end to the practice as public opinion shifts
• Deep sea mining threatens to create devastating sediment clouds lasting 3-6 years that could suffocate marine life across hundreds of square miles
• Krill overfishing in the Southern Ocean by factory ships from Norway, Japan and Russia is starving penguin and whale populations while producing cheap feed for factory farms
• The Captain Paul Watson Foundation is planning direct interventions against krill fishing operations, creating a new TV series called "Krill Wars" to raise awareness
• Commercial fishing operations globally are sustained by approximately $90 billion in government subsidies, not by actual market profitability
• The foundation's upcoming projects include anti-poaching operations in the Mediterranean, protecting turtles in Mayotte, and opposing seismic testing off Uruguay

Join us in supporting ocean conservation by donating to Resilient Earth Radio and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation to help protect our blue planet. Visit our website or find us on social media to learn how you can contribute.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Resilient Earth Radio
• 1:50 Meet Captain Paul Watson
• 3:58 UN Ocean Conference Highlights
• 6:37 Iceland Whaling Pause and Mayor Support
• 16:10 Deep Sea Mining Dangers
• 21:53 Fighting Krill Overfishing
• 31:17 Japanese Whaling and Political Pressure
• 40:30 Corruption Behind Global Fishing Subsidies
• 49:27 Upcoming Projects and Foundation Work
• 57:36 We Are The Ocean: Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 0:05

Welcome to Resilient Earth Radio, where we host speakers from the United States and around the world to talk about critical issues facing our planet and the positive actions people are taking. I'm Leigh Anne Lindsey, producer and host, along with my co-producers and co-hosts, Scott and Tree Mercer, of the Mendonoma Whale and Seal Study. We talk about nature-based economies that help rebalance Earth and raise awareness about the value of whales, elephants, mangroves, seagrass, the deep seas, waterways and forests. This awareness could lead to new laws, policies and procedures to help protect these valuable resources and encourage economies around them to replace the existing exploitation of oceans, forests and animals. So please donate today and share this wherever you can. Your contribution will help us here at Resilient Earth Radio and Podcast continue talking about the critical issues and positive actions Produced in association with Planet Centric Media Seastorm Studios. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram and wherever you get your podcasts.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 1:50

In this episode, we catch up with Captain Paul Watson, who is talking to us from his houseboat across from the Louvre in Paris, france, about his time at the recent UN Ocean Conference in Nice, france, where he met with several island dignitaries and French President Emmanuel Macron, and we ask him about a few things, such as the whaling efforts that have halted in Iceland, his thoughts on deep sea mining, an update about the High Seas Treaty that occurred during the Ocean Conference and about overfishing of krill around the planet. Captain Paul is a renowned marine wildlife conservation and environmental activist who's best known for co-founding Greenpeace and founding the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. In 2022, he stepped down from Sea Shepherd to co-found the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, with ongoing support by Sea Shepherd France and Brazil, to continue his lifelong dedication to protecting marine life and their habitats. He's authored several books, the most recent a children's book called we Are the Ocean. He has two young children who live with him in Paris, along with their mother and his wife, jana Rusinovich, whom he married on Valentine's Day in 2015. The last time we spoke was January of this year, just after he'd been released from a Greenland prison near the end of December 2024. You can hear all about that experience from that January episode. In this one, we're talking about more recent events and what's on deck next for this intrepid ocean warrior.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 3:42

Thanks for listening to Resilient Earth Radio and Podcast. Leigh Anne Lindsey. We'll get into our show right after this word from our sponsor, the Catch.

The Catch: 3:58

Small fish off the coast of West Africa are being scooped up in large numbers and ground into fish meal that's then sent all over the planet to feed other fish, like the farm salmon you get at your local grocery store.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 4:12

It's all part of a global supply chain that has some people crying foul here is a case where the communities lose their fish, their food security and they don't see any dollars coming in.

The Catch: 4:24

That's coming up on the latest season of the Catch. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 4:32

Welcome back, captain Paul. It's really wonderful to see you again. Well, thank you, and also Scott and Tree Mercer are here. Hello, paul, good morning. We were very impressed with the attendance. That happened at the United Nations Ocean Conference. You gave a talk, you had several meetings with dignitaries, including President Macron, and we want to hear about that. We want to hear about what's happening in Iceland with the pause on whaling, and we'd like to hear, too, about the overfishing of krill and also what can be done about deep sea mining. Deep sea mining is a topic that we actually have covered recently, so why don't we get underway with how it was to be at the conference in Nice, france, and what transpired?

Captain Paul Watson: 5:30

in Rio de Janeiro in 92 and the COP 31 in Paris. And generally I'm not very enthusiastic about these UN conferences because they never really seem to accomplish much. Every promise they make never comes true and it's usually just a photo opportunity for world leaders to pretend that they're doing something. So I have to this one here. I didn't go into it with a lot of expectations, but I was encouraged by a couple of things. One is that the mayor of Nice, who's a very big supporter of ours, and he came up with the idea of inviting mayors from around the coastal cities of the world, and then we had this big dinner with all these mayors, because he believes that's where real, effective action takes place is on the local level, on the municipal level, more than on state and federal levels. And so that was very successful.

Captain Paul Watson: 6:30

And at that dinner I was actually sat down between they put the mayor of Reykjavik right beside me and it was really funny because at first they were trying to get me to sit at another table because they didn't want to sit me beside her, but then she said no, it's fine, and so she sat there. She's very, very enthusiastic, very supportive and she's very much against whaling, so that was good. And then the next day she did a tour of our ship, which is in the harbor. Less than 50% of the people in Iceland support whaling. So in the government, both in Reykjavik and the government nationally in Iceland as opposed to whaling. So in the government, both in Reykjavik and the government nationally in Iceland, as opposed to whaling.

Captain Paul Watson: 7:07

So you know we've come a long ways over the years, so most people in Iceland are now anti-whaling. So she certainly was a reflection of that. I had lunch with the president of French Polynesia, who had been very supportive when I was in Greenland, and we talked about different conservation issues that have to be addressed in the South Pacific. I had an hour-long meeting with the environment minister for Brazil and a half-hour meeting with the first lady of Brazil. I guess President Lula was a little busy, but then I did the TV show with President Macron.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 7:47

Here's a quick clip from that French TV show during the United Nations Ocean Conference, where he sits down with President Macron and other dignitaries, along with a couple of news channel crew, and we see him walking across the stage and being introduced to the president. They shake hands, they sit down and then the question is asked if Captain Paul has met Macron before. To which he replies yes, yes, we have.

Captain Paul Watson: 8:18

Vous connaissez Emmanuel Macron, paul Watson, oui, oui, matt, yes, oui on s'est rencontrés.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 8:23

oui, and then we see Macron engaging, very friendly with Captain Paul and talking into the mic and to the audience. This back-and-forth engaged conversation went on for about 12 minutes and now we get back to the conversation with Captain Paul.

Captain Paul Watson: 8:41

That reached about 4 million people. So we did about 15 minutes on TV during that where we talked about all these issues.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 8:48

Captain Paul also met with Panama's Environment Minister, Juan Carlos Navarro, and they focused on issues like deep-sea mining, overfishing and the High Seas Treaty.

Captain Paul Watson: 8:59

So overall it was. You know, this is the first meeting where I actually got to meet some of these people, talked to them, but the most important thing out of the conference was the fact that when the conference began, there was only 28 countries that had ratified the High Seas Treaty and they needed 60 for ratification, and by the end of the conference they had secured 64 countries that had ratified it. Of course, the United States didn't ratify it, but you it, but major countries like France and Chile and Brazil and others did. Japan no, australia no. But that's good because the High Seas Treaty helps us. We already have the United Nations World Charter per Nature to help us when we intervene, and this also gives us further justification and legitimacy to intervene. So that was probably the best thing that came out of the conference.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 9:52

And what exactly will this high seas treaty actually accomplish? Do you feel Well?

Captain Paul Watson: 10:00

it's supposed to mean that there's going to be enforcement of the international laws and regulations. I don't know if that's going to be enforcement of the international laws and regulations. I don't know if that's going to happen. But what it does mean is that if we go in and intervene, then we can use that as a defense for our intervention, say in a court of law.

Captain Paul Watson: 10:16

Now, back in 1993, when I chased Spanish drag trawlers off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and I was put on trial in Canada for a week and my defense was the UN World Charter for Nature, and at the trial Canada brought in they spent $3 million trying to convict me on this thing. There's three counts of mischief. Mischief is what they charge you when they can't figure out anything else real to charge you. I didn't damage any property, I didn't hurt anybody. I didn't steal anything. It was just you could have hurt somebody, you could have damaged property. That's what mischief is all about.

Captain Paul Watson: 10:49

But anyway, I cited the UN Charter for Nature and they brought in a law professor from the University of Toronto to say, well, the UN Charter for Nature has no application under Canadian law. And the judge said, well, did Canada sign this or not? And she said, yeah, but Canada signs a lot of things. And so he said, well, to the jury, well, you're going to have to take that under advisement. And so that was my defense and I was acquitted on all of those charges. So the High Seas Treaty will give us an even more additional defense, for if we go in and we disrupt something, we get arrested, we go to court, either whether a civil or a criminal thing. We can use that as a defense for intervention. More and more judges are beginning to realize and understand and to make decisions that people have a right to intervene as a form of self-defense, really on environmental issues, and that's going to become more and more of a case.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 11:44

And what was that meeting with the Polynesian president? What were the types of things you discussed?

Captain Paul Watson: 11:51

Well, the president of French Polynesia is a Tahitian and his party is one that's seeking independence from France, so he's like you know, so he's very popular for that reason. Well, we talked because French Polynesia has created all these marine protected areas and so he's interested in seeing that's enforced. We're very concerned about illegal fishing by foreign fishing operations off the Marquesas. In fact, last year I was invited by people in the Marquesas to do something about it, so he was very supportive of that, of us getting involved. So basically, we'll have the support of the government in Tahiti for anything that we do in the future.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 12:38

What do you think will really come from this conference and describe. Let's go ahead.

Captain Paul Watson: 12:48

Honestly not much. But you pick what you can out of that you can use it. But they spent 38 million euros a whole hostess conference which they talk a lot. I think Greta Thunberg thumbed up the climate change conferences with this blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's really all.

Captain Paul Watson: 13:08

But we are looking at going at the COP30 conference, which the only reason I'm interested in doing that is that it's going to be held in Belém in Brazil, and I've been invited by Chief Raoni of the Kayapu people and also by President Lula da Silva.

Captain Paul Watson: 13:24

So you know that's worthwhile going there. We're going to bring our ship there on our way to doing the krill campaign, so we'll go to Balem and then go from there down to do the krill campaign. We're also looking at the possibility of going up the Amazon for a thousand miles to Manaus and bringing many of the native chiefs back down the river. But that's a little up in the air because the pilotage fees to do that is about $300,000. So that might be a little too much, but the government's arranged for us to have a free birth in Belém, so it's worthwhile doing that. And, on the way, we're looking at intervening against illegal fishing or poaching off of in the waters of French Guiana, and so that's just something to do on the way, and then when we leave, we want to show up and oppose the seismic testing off the coasts of Uruguay, and then from there we'll go down to the Southern Ocean.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 14:24

And what year is that?

Captain Paul Watson: 14:26

At the end of this year.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 14:27

Oh, end of this year.

Captain Paul Watson: 14:28

Good yeah, the COP30 conference is in November.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 14:31

Okay, we just had a recording with Michael Stalker of the Ocean Conservation Research, who studies sounds in human-generated sounds in the ocean and seismic testing. That is such a huge impact on marine life. I'm glad that you guys will be doing going now. Where was that again that you're going to be doing that part?

Captain Paul Watson: 14:59

Off the coast of Uruguay, south of Brazil.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 15:02

Yeah, now who is doing that testing?

Captain Paul Watson: 15:05

Oil companies.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 15:09

You know, we've been really following this offshore drilling for oil companies here in the United States. Our the reasons behind that, the companies that are getting heavily funded now, like the metals company out of Vancouver and one out of San Jose, impossible Metals, among many others, who are just gearing up to go plunder the Clarion-Clipperton zone, and I know that you've said some things about that, so I want to touch on that.

Captain Paul Watson: 15:47

But I want to get back to the krill part as well we do want to intervene against deep sea mining and looking at this and specifically the metal company and specifically in the clipperton area, but they're not going to be doing anything until next year. So, uh, we'll be ready to uh intervene next year when they show up, excellent. You know, this is interesting with deep-sea mining because, strangely enough, I've been involved in it since 1977. I was there in Honolulu when the Stedco 245 arrived with the first cargo of manganese nodules and INCO had brought them up for the deep, and so I was there to watch these manganese nodules and Inco had brought them up for the deep. And so I was there to watch these manganese nodules and I interviewed the president of the mining company at the time and actually I was quite encouraged at the time because they said they had no intention of actually going after them and he predicted nobody's going to touch these things for at least 50 years. Well, that was 50 years ago. But the reason that he said that was because he said they didn't want the competition for their mining operations on land. And the other thing that was in opposition to it, strangely enough, is the Pentagon, because they're concerned that the sediment, you know, the pollution from deep sea mining will have an adverse effect on sonar for the submarine operations and that, so they're very much opposed to it. But I don't think people really understand just how damaging this is, because you know you're going down one, two miles to the seabed floor to pull these little potato-sized rocks. Now how those potato-sized rocks were formed is from over 200 million years of particulate matter falling down into the bottom and then it all sort of crystallizes into these things, and so what it's doing is it's leaching. Gold, manganese, nickel, cobalt all get in there. So what they want to do is pull these up and then melt them down and get those traces of metal. But we need a lot to really get a substantial return on that.

Captain Paul Watson: 17:52

But okay, you go down there and you're starting to mess up with an incomplete ecosystem, which is there's a lot of various species that are involved in that ecosystem. So you're going to screw that up on the bottom floor. You're going to put lights into an environment where none of these living things even know anything about lights Incredible noise where they're not going. You know it's going to be very disruptive on the benthic level, but once you get those nodules up to the surface and you start loading them on. That means washing all the sediment off, all that mud, and that goes back into the ocean. All the sediment off, all that mud and that goes back into the ocean.

Captain Paul Watson: 18:30

Now, oceanographers have estimated it could take anywhere from three to six years for that mud to reach the bottom again, because it would slowly and it would spread out in clouds over hundreds of square miles. Now, as it's doing that, it's going to be leaching oxygen out of the ocean water and, of course, suffocating fish populations as a result. And when it does reach the bottom, it's going to be a blanket of silt that's just going to cover the benthic life that's down there. So it's an extremely, extremely destructive industry, but most people aren't really aware of how destructive it is. And, of course, trump made his announcement that oh yeah, I'll give you the green light on deep sea mining. But you know he has no idea. It doesn't care, all he's concerned. Hey, might kill a bunch of sharks. That's good news, isn't it? That's the way he thinks.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 19:15

Anything to be extractive and make money, and that's a 3D column of life. That's another aspect of it that richard charter has really pointed out and a lot of the times we've talked with him and, and it's true, it impacts the entire column of life the sediment spreads across the entire ocean wow, and the lights, and the noise that that too is so, so disruptive of that life down there. I think Dr Sylvia Earle has talked about that too.

Captain Paul Watson: 19:51

That was the other thing at the Ocean Conference. I spent a bit of time with Sylvia Earle at a couple of the conferences, especially on deep sea mining. We did a conference together on that.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 20:01

That's great. She's in that documentary that the Ocean Foundation did on Defend the Deep. They did that last year in advance, so it's like very apropos now. And so let's shift gear just a second and go to krills, overfishing of krill and what's behind that, and also I want to include how the seabeds are being trawled and scraped. So I'd like to get your thoughts on both of those things.

Captain Paul Watson: 20:39

Well, the one great thing about David Attenborough's film is that it really showed that the trawlers and how destructive they were on the bottom. I actually went to see that film at UNESCO's office here in Paris and I had an opportunity to question the director because I was a little concerned about that film. Because David, for all the good he's done, he actually said well, a great success story is a moratorium on whaling in 1986, and the whales are, and I had to point out you know 50,000 whales had died since that so-called moratorium that was put in there and whaling still continues. And the other, but they didn't really mention seabed mining in the film either, and they didn't. You know there's a lot of things that weren't there. But you know, to be fair, there's only so much you can put in a film, I guess.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 21:29

I noticed that too about what he said. I watched it just the other night and saw the same thing. But David Attenborough, I have to say when I studied him in college he's the one who first got me down this path to really look at the environment and understand it better.

Captain Paul Watson: 21:47

Well, he's a great educator. I mean, in the footsteps of Yakusto, they were both great educators and you know that certainly has a very important role in this movement. So, yeah, it was great. It was good film in that respect. I just had a problem with the whaling issue because he was tending to give this idea that well, the whales are saved, we don't have to do anything.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 22:09

Well, at least in Iceland right now there is a pause, which is good to hear. I hope it lasts.

Captain Paul Watson: 22:18

Well, I think it's more than just a pause, because, first of all, the day we showed up in 2023 was the day they called the moratorium there. Then last year, when we were on our way to Iceland, they canceled it again. And this year, when we were in Dublin ready to go, they canceled again. So that's three years in a row. I think that it's going to end. And the other operation there's a Mickey whale operation. He just gave it up and he's selling his boat right now, so that boat's for sale for 60,000 euros right now.

Captain Paul Watson: 22:49

With the harpoon I'd buy the whaling boat so I could go hunt whalers with the harpoon. But Lofts is the one man who's responsible for this and he's 81 years old and I don't know why he does this. He's the wealthiest man in Iceland, but he's very influential. So what you have is the government of the Iceland and the majority of people are opposed to it, but he continues to get his permits and continues to push it because he's got a lot of influence. But I think that I think it may be over. We'll watch it very closely, but I think that that's pretty much the end for Icelandic whaling.

Captain Paul Watson: 23:30

It could be wrong, but I just don't see the enthusiasm on the part of the Icelandic people to carry on with it. So you know, norway is now actually the biggest whaling nation. They kill more whales than Japan. But the Japanese are targeting, you know, fin whales and sai whales and everything, and the Norwegians are going after minke whales, which are a little more common. But still the problem with interfering with Norwegian whaling is that it's like dozens of little small boats up and down the coast where you know it's not like going after a whaling fleet. You know, we went after them in 92 and 94. We sunk six of them and the reason we sank them was, you know, we weren't going to be that really effective against it. But as a result of the sinking them they had to get more insurance and their insurance premiums went up considerably, and still are, because we're always right there lurking behind the scenes saying, hey, we might go after your boats and they might not take it seriously, but the insurance companies do.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 24:26

I finally got to watch Whale Wars the other few months ago, right after our conversation with you in January.

Captain Paul Watson: 24:34

You hadn't seen it before.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 24:36

No, I hadn't, and so it was a revelation for me and it was great to see the action and the activity and the time and effort that it took.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 24:45

And the activity and the time and effort that it took. That's Captain Paul Watson, former star of Whale Wars, also co-founder of Greenpeace, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and now the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, who's been talking to us from his boat near the Louvre in Paris about his time and talks at UNOC, the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, france, this past June, from French President Macron to environmental ministers from places like Brazil and Panama, leaders from islands like French Polynesia, and he's been reflecting on his life as an environmentalist for the past 50 years. I'm Leanne Lindsay of Planet Centric Media and Seastorm Studios, along with my co-hosts and co-producers, scott and Tree Mercer of the Mendenoma Whale and Seal Study here on the Mendocino and Sonoma coasts of Northern California. Now back to our conversation with Captain Paul Watson. So Norway is doing more whaling than Japan is, which is actually significant, yeah they're killing whales, but Japan's going after more endangered whales.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 26:16

There's the distinction.

Captain Paul Watson: 26:17

That's what made Iceland so egregious was. Iceland's only target was spin whales, which were endangered. What vessel are you on now? This is a Finnish which is like a houseboat. We're on the. Seine. I missed the first few minutes of you, so I missed that. You can't miss the portholes behind you. We're right across from the Louvre, actually on the river Nice.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 26:38

Very nice.

Captain Paul Watson: 26:39

Which, by the way, for the first time in 100 years, there is now swimming in the Seine.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 26:48

Really, years are now swimming in the in the same, really wow, it's one good thing that came out of the olympics. There you go, there you go. Okay, so I'm clueless why.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 26:54

Why was there no swimming in the same?

Captain Paul Watson: 26:56

well, because it's dirty, that's what I thought. Okay, that's my guess they cleaned it up so they could do this, you know, the swimming, the marathon and everything they had to do, that it was in the river and so the mayor herself, she opened it up by going swimming, last May, I think.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 27:18

All right. Well, let's go back to the topic that we were starting to go down, and that was a talk about krill.

Captain Paul Watson: 27:25

These huge, huge factory ships go down to the Southern Ocean. They're from Norway, they're from Japan, they're from Russia, and why they go after krill is because, first of all, they can pull in an awful lot of it and they're huge cloud swarms of krill. They're little shrimp-like creatures but they're the basic food for the whales and the penguins in the Southern Ocean, and they can go out and exploit literally millions of tons of this, bring it on board the factory ships and then it's converted into two things. First it's a cheap protein paste to go to factory farms to feed chickens and to feed pigs and also to feed salmon on salmon farms. So those are the three things that they're targeting, but also to make a krill oil vitamin supplement for health food stores.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 28:16

The omega-3, right.

Captain Paul Watson: 28:18

Yeah, they're selling them on that, but you know, I think we're destroying the ocean so somebody can get their omega-3. But it's a real problem for the populations of penguins, which penguin populations are being diminished, and it's through starvation, and so it has to be dealt with. Now the organization Sea Shepherd that kicked me out, that is Sea Shepherd Global. They've gone down there three years in a row and it's made me increasingly frustrated and actually quite embarrassed, because for the three years, all they've done is gone down and take pictures, and which something Greenpeace did in 2018, something National Geographic also did in 2018. And I'm going, what are you doing? Just taking pictures, you know, and they actually had the audacity to call it Antarctic Defense, and they actually had the audacity to call it Antarctic Defense. So we have to go down there and redeem the name by doing an interventionist campaign. We have to intervene directly with their operations, we have to shut them down, and you don't do that by taking pictures.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 29:21

So when will you be doing that?

Captain Paul Watson: 29:26

At the end of the year, right after Brazil, right after, okay, because December, january, february are the best times to engage these vessels down there.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 29:36

Is there no organization that can also intervene and prevent this or stop it?

Captain Paul Watson: 29:45

We're looking to work with the Bob Brown Foundation in Australia, but probably they're about the only one and they're a direct action organization getting arrested all the time down there in Tasmania, you know. But I also I'm working to getting to getting executive directors to do another TV series to be called Creel Wars, a follow up on Whale Wars. So I need eight executive directors. Put a quarter million dollars each in there. I've got two so far, so I just started. So that's, it's looking good and that. So you know it's okay to go down there and intervene and interfere and everything like that. But it's really important to have that operation dramatized and put on television so millions of people can see what's going on down there.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 30:29

It has the greatest impact Awareness raising, you know.

Captain Paul Watson: 30:34

Well, there's a difference between what we do and what have done with Whale Wars is that we don't go down and just document nature. We go down there and document our interventions to protect nature. We go down there and document our interventions to protect nature. And when I did whale wars, it's interesting that there's only two ways to really interfere there. One is to block their ability to load whales by blocking the slipway, which we did. The other one is to intervene against their refueling operations and that was also very effective. But if you saw the show, we have water cannon fights, we have stink bombs. I just put all that in for television. It doesn't really do anything but it's entertaining, it's dramatic and it got people's attention. But the effective interventions were the blocking of the fueling and the loading of the whales Interesting and the loading of the whales Interesting.

Captain Paul Watson: 31:26

So over that period of time we managed to save 6,500 plus whales, and we know that number because that's how much they did not get in their quotas during those periods. So the last year I was down there on the 2012-2013 campaign, they only took 10% of their quota. So we're getting better every year on that, and that's one of the reasons that the Japanese came after me and issued a red notice. I didn't actually do anything. The charge is conspiracy to trespass I mean, what does that even mean? And also obstructing business. But it's supposed to be a research whaling, but it's obstructing business, and I wasn't even there when the incident took place that they're charging me with.

Captain Paul Watson: 32:09

And the thing is is it's all based on the fact that Pete Bethunes he had a boat called the it wasn't my boat, he was working with us, but he wasn't under my authority but his boat got cut in half and destroyed by a Japanese harpoon vessel, with no legal consequences to the Japanese at all. So he boarded the vessel to confront the captain who had destroyed his boat, and they kidnapped him, took him to Japan and charged him with trespassing and obstructing business, and he was in prison for three or four months and then they made a deal with him and the deal was if you say that Paul Watson ordered you to do this, then we'll give you a suspended sentence, which is what he did, and he got a suspended sentence when he was released. He then signed an affidavit saying he lied in order to get that suspended sentence. And John Kerry, the Secretary of the State, got that and he said oh yeah, this is ridiculous. You can come back home, which I did, although I have to say that the year that I spent in exile in the South Pacific was kind of nice. I didn't mind being on these always deserted islands by myself, lots of wildlife and everything, but anyway. So the charge was obstructing business. Now John Kerry said yeah, well, there's no grounds for it. But the Japanese said we don't care, you're going to be charged and that's it. But there's no evidence, because the only evidence was this guy's statement. But that's all. They have to go on.

Captain Paul Watson: 33:36

So they didn't even attempt to arrest me during the time that I was in the United States. They never attempted to arrest me when I was in France or Ireland, but when I went this time, because I stopped in Greenland, which is a Danish territory, and they're killing pilot whales and dolphins in the Faroe Islands. Uh, the Japanese went to the Danes and got them to um to put in the uh, you know, to enforcement. Now here's the interesting thing when I got into Greenland, 12, very heavily armed Danish policemen boarded the ship to arrest me. And I'm going this is a little overkill. And then I found out why because the Japanese described me in the Interpol Red Notice as an extremely dangerous armed eco-terrorist. And so that's how.

Captain Paul Watson: 34:21

I remember that.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 34:22

Yeah.

Captain Paul Watson: 34:23

And so, anyway, the good news on this is, in April, the Interpol suspended that red notice pending an investigation into the political implications of it, and on June 24th they were supposed to make a determination whether that would be permanent or not, but I haven't heard yet. But my lawyer said that's normal. These guys never do anything, you know quickly, but I still right now, until that is, it's a suspended sort of situation. But here's the other interesting thing is that a week ago, one of the people in Interpol who was actually involved with my case was arrested in the UAE for bribery. So he was taking bribes either to not to remove the red notice or to put people on the red notice, so that all those cases had to be reviewed. And I don't really know where I fit in on that, but in 2017, there was a European Parliamentary Committee that cited my case as an example of political corruption and abuse in Interpol.

Captain Paul Watson: 35:24

Now the other thing that happened is a couple of weeks ago was the arrest of a judge in Costa Rica, the judge who made the decision to not dismiss the Costa Rican red notice against me, and he was arrested. He's being extradited to the United States on drug trafficking charges. This is like a federal judge on the Costa Rican charges. So I mean you can see this kind of corruption that's involved in Japan's manipulations behind it the Costa Rican charges. So I mean you can see this kind of corruption that's involved in Japan's manipulations behind it. The Costa Rican red notice was dropped in 2017 with the change of government and I actually got a call from the environment minister apologizing for that. But if you can drop it from the red notice on the change of government, that shows more than anything that it was politically motivated. It wasn't judicial.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 36:06

I was going to ask you how if this could be used again. So it sounds like it may have a permanent dismissal.

Captain Paul Watson: 36:18

Is that what you were saying? Yeah, we can get it permanently dismissed, but there's nothing to stop Japan from going to another country and saying we want a unilateral request for extradition. That's why I don't dare come back to the US as long as Trump's president because he's very transactional and he had a meeting with the Japanese prime minister. I don't know what they discussed and people said, well, surely they're not going to be talking about you. But in January the Japanese foreign minister called the Danish ambassador into his office in Tokyo to berate him and said that they were extremely disturbed that Denmark had betrayed Japan, and so if they're going to talk about me on the highest levels of the Japanese government, I can only assume there's a possibility that it was discussed with the US government.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 37:02

Paul, you're a little too popular.

Captain Paul Watson: 37:06

Well, the amazing thing about it is that the time that I was in prison for five months, backlash was backfired on both Japan and Denmark, because we turned it into a campaign. I always think you take every situation as an opportunity, and we turned this into a campaign to further expose Japan's illegal whaling operations, plus to expose the killing of pilot whales and dolphins in the Faroe Islands, and neither Japan nor Denmark really were prepared for the reaction on that, because interventions on my behalf from the president and prime minister of France, the president of French Polynesia, the president of Brazil, the pope, actually intervened. What I found out from the pope, actually his office, is that Japan put an awful lot of pressure on the Vatican. We're making threats. They threatened Denmark with the cancellation of a $100 million windmill project. They threatened trade relations with France. All these threats were coming through. Plus, we got over a million signatures, plus, you know, interventions by you know Sylvia Earle and Jane Goodall and so many others.

Captain Paul Watson: 38:14

They weren't prepared for that. So what happened? On December 17th, the Green Room Court made the decision to extradite me. That was their decision, and the next day, the Attorney General for Denmark made the political decision to release me. Needless to say, Japan was not happy.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 38:33

So they still have a bee in their bonnet, so to speak.

Captain Paul Watson: 38:37

Yeah, the Japanese hold grudges. I hate to generalize, but just looking at you know, I've studied Japanese history and they hold grudges. You know, on a governmental level I'm not talking about the people, I'm talking about the government tends to hold grudges. You know, on a governmental level. I'm not talking about the people, I'm talking about the government tends to hold grudges and they and what I did, my real crime was they want retribution for a television show that embarrassed them and they're still actively whaling and they have that enormous whale processing ship that just come out, I believe.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 39:06

What last year? Is that still being used?

Captain Paul Watson: 39:10

They built that for the Southern Ocean. They're saying that it's not for the Southern Ocean, it's for coastal whaling. You don't build a ship like that for coastal whaling. That's a long-range vessel that can carry an extremely amount of cargo and it's also they covered the top so nobody can actually fly drones and see what's going on. And they built it with water cannons and other defensive things. This thing was set up to defend itself from us, which is a little flattering that they did that. But they spent $60 million to build this ship and there's no money in whaling. It hasn't made any money for decades.

Captain Paul Watson: 39:45

But I'll tell you the reason why it goes on. It's got nothing to do with whale meat at all. Less than 1% of the Japanese public eats whale meat. It goes on because the company that goes whaling is owned by the government of Japan and its board of directors are 12 ex-politicians who get six-figure salaries for sitting on that board, and this is an industry the government subsidizes to about $30, $35 million a year. Now the other reason is that the union that provides the crew for the ship is a Yakuza-controlled union or Japanese mafia-controlled union. They have a lot of influence with the government, so it carries on because of corruption, and you know that's the only reason. That is. It has no economic benefit at all.

Captain Paul Watson: 40:32

It's the same with the Canadian seal hunt. You know Canada's official quota is 400,000 seals, but they kill 40,000. They only take 10%. The reason for that there's no market. That was a really successful campaign on ours. We fought it from 75 on until 2008, when Europe banned seal pelts, china banned seal pelts, and but so what they do is they kill 40,000 seals and store the pelts in warehouses. You won't believe the name of the place in Newfoundland it's called Dildo Newfoundland, but that's where they store them and subsidize it to about 20 million a year. And the only reason that they do that is for political reasons to keep the Newfoundlanders happy.

Captain Paul Watson: 41:10

Because the Newfoundlanders have this bizarre idea that seals are eating all their fish and if we don't kill the seals we're going to run out of fish. Now I have to point out to them you know, 500 years ago there were about 45 million seals in the North Atlantic Ocean and now there's less than 7 million. About 45 million seals in the North Atlantic Ocean and now there's less than 7 million. So it wasn't the seals that killed off the fish, it was the commercial fisheries. And also, if you want the fish to come back, you need seals, you need whales, because there's a relationship between prey and predator there, because we think that the seals eat the cod, but they don't. They eat the halibut, the ulican and the herring. They eat the fish, they eat the small young cod and that keeps everything you know after millennium. Nature keeps all this stuff in balance. We come like pretending to know what we're doing when we never do, and that's what sets the whole upsets, the whole apple cart.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 42:02

That is so accurate about. You know, if we leave nature to itself, it knows how to keep balance of all these populations, and it is our interference with it that's destroying it actually.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 42:19

We've been talking today with Captain Paul Watson of the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, a lifelong environmental activist and former star of Whale Wars. He talked about a new TV series that they are putting together called the Krill Wars. You were hearing from also Teresa Ortree Mercer of the Mendenoma Whale and Seal Study that she started with her husband Scott, and the two of them and I, lee and Lindsay created this show Resilient Earth Radio and Podcast to bring you critical issues facing our planet and the positive actions people are taking like Captain Paul Watson. And now back to Tree, as she finishes up her comment.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 43:07

I actually was not aware that most of the whaling efforts were all this corruption and I was still assuming that people there was a market for whale meat and blubber, but apparently not. That's so interesting.

Captain Paul Watson: 43:23

Well, iceland, actually for the last 10 years, or for Iceland, lofsten had to. He lost about 1 million a year on that, but he's like he's wealthy, he does this because he wants to do it, he doesn't do it for money and that. So in Norway they it's all subsidized, all these things are subsidized, so it's that's the only, but then again subsidized by the countries themselves, like Norway.

Captain Paul Watson: 43:48

And it's even worse than that because worldwide commercial, industrialized fishing operations exist because of about $90 billion in government subsidies From the EU, through all these, australia, all these countries are subsidizing the commercial fishing operation because otherwise it couldn't survive. Fishing operation because otherwise it couldn't survive. In order to extract fish from the ocean, you need such sophisticated technology and such incredibly big ships that you know you got a hundred million euro. Factory ships are out there. You've got a hundred mile long long lines, a hundred mile long gill nets. You've got giant purse seine nets. You got these lines 100-mile-long gill nets. You've got giant purse-seying nets. We pulled one gill net from the Southern Ocean that was two kilometers deep. It took 200 hours to pull it up. It was 72 kilometers long and weighed 70 tons. And that was one net from one ship 70 tons, yeah, so you know this is the kind of thing we're dealing with here.

Captain Paul Watson: 44:47

At any given time, there's enough long lining and gill nets set to go around the planet 60 times oh and that's one of the things that we're also involved with is, you know, cleaning up marine debris, and most, I would say 60 percent of all the marine debris is fishing gear fishing gear yep.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 45:04

Gear yep, and plastics yeah.

Captain Paul Watson: 45:08

And of course, all the fishing gear is plastic.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 45:10

That's right, it's made of plastic.

Captain Paul Watson: 45:12

You know I try to remind people because I was raised in a fishing village in eastern Canada in the 50s and 60s and I could walk the beach there for miles and never see one speck of plastic back then. So this is all a real new thing. I think plastic's really a design failure. Nobody really thought it through when they came up with it Back then. My town was actually the world's largest lobster fishery town and all the lobster traps were made of wood and hemp, so if they were lost they just biodegraded. You know we didn't have nylon fishing lines and things like that, so you didn't have that kind of problem.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 45:52

Well, back to Tree's point about the habits of a nation. If it's historical, societal, maybe just the way that they you know the food that they might eat, does that still play a part in some of these things? I remember watching that documentary by Richard Ladkani about the vaquita and the sea shepherd several years back. Is that still driving any of the demand?

Captain Paul Watson: 46:24

Well, yeah, I mean first, the Japanese like to say that this is a traditional thing, but it isn't. There's about two towns in Japan that killed whales, only two towns. It wasn't a national thing. So when they say it's part of our tradition, it's not true. The interesting thing about it it was part of the tradition of the Ainu people. The Ainu people are the aboriginal inhabitants of Japan. They're actually Caucasians. In fact, they're the origin where Hungarians and Finns come from, originally from there. But the Ainu people were whalers. Japan outlawed them and forbids Ainu whaling. So Aboriginal whaling in Japan is forbidden. And so now they tell what they're doing. They're saying that that's Aboriginal whaling when it's not Aboriginal at all. So we have so many like in the Norwegians. They don't make any money on it at all, it's just subsidized, everybody subsidizes it.

Captain Paul Watson: 47:16

Now, the one place where tradition is the main reason is the Faroe Islands, where they kill pilot whales and dolphins kill everything that shows up, really, because, well, their father did it, their great-father did it, their great-great-grandfather, vikings did it, you know. So we're going to do it and that's the kind of thing. But they don't. You know, there's no money to be made in it. It's totally non-commercial. But everybody gets involved in it. The kids get involved in it, they expose the kids to it. So if they sight a pod of pilot whales, everybody quits work, everybody goes out of school to go down to the beach to kill as many as they possibly can.

Captain Paul Watson: 47:50

And I remember confronting the prime minister of the Faroe Islands back in 1986. And I said to him you know why are you doing this? It's a gift from God. What do you mean it's a gift from God? I said look, it says in the Bible, in Leviticus you can't eat anything out of the ocean that doesn't have scales. So therefore it's an abomination to. You know, because we're a very Christian nation, it's an abomination to. And he said God made an exemption for us.

Captain Paul Watson: 48:21

But the pilot whale meat is unedible. It's so contaminated with heavy metals, especially methylmercury, is unedible. It's so contaminated with heavy metals, especially methylmercury, it's unedible. In fact, the children of the Faroe Islands have the highest level of mercury in the bodies of any children anywhere on the planet. The doctors in the Faroe Islands are the world's experts on mercury poisoning. Because of this, people are only allowed to. They say no, pregnant women, no children should eat it. But they do, but, and the adult men should only eat and women should only eat 200 grams a month. Well, of course they don't.

Captain Paul Watson: 48:59

You know, and you take the number of whales they kill and look at the number of people in the population and aside the fact that less than 40% of them eat whale meat, what happens to all that whale meat? They throw it away, they dump it, and we documented that dumping carcasses. We see hundreds of rotting carcasses on the floor, sea floor. They just throw them away. They kill because they want to kill. That's the only reason for it. It's a blood sport. They're only I guess they're very bored people, but at the same time they're these very nationalistic. You know, we are Faroese and nobody's going to tell us what to do, and that's the same thing. But you know, we live in a world where, you know, the bullfighting has been banned in Mexico. It's been banned in Barcelona. Fox hunting has been banned in the UK. You, barcelona, fox hunting has been banned in the UK. You know these kind of blood sports have no place in the 21st century.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 49:49

No, they don't Not any place at all. I agree, it's sickening.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 49:55

Let's talk about what is coming up next for your crew, for the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, for Sea Shepherd France. What's on the agenda for the?

Captain Paul Watson: 50:07

John Paul DeGioia? Well, we're working in cooperation with Sea Shepherd France and Sea Shepherd France. What's on the agenda for the John Paul DeGioia? Well, we're working in cooperation with Sea Shepherd France and Sea Shepherd Brazil, and next week the boat's leaving from Marseille, where it is right now, to go off of Greece and Italy to go after poachers and also to check out illegal taking of bluefin tuna. So they'll be doing that, and after that we'll be heading to French Guiana and then to Brazil and in Brazil, Sea Shepherd is working there in the Amazon to protect river dolphins and manatees. So that's an ongoing project.

Captain Paul Watson: 50:41

This month I'm going to Mayotte, which is a French territorial island off the coast of Mozambique, and we're going there. We've got a crew there full time to stop poaching of turtles. On that, it's a big, big problem and it's actually got a really good arrangement with the French government on this, because most of the people who work with us, the volunteers who work with us, are illegal immigrants coming from the Comoros or from Mozambique or Madagascar, I mean. So they come over there and we've actually got them under some sort of protection. So if we tell the police they're working with us, they're working to—so we've got a house we've rented for the people who are doing this and it's had a real impact. So we cut down on the poaching quite a bit. That's good. Why is it you have to go?

Captain Paul Watson: 51:33

after the poachers and not the government? Good question, because the police? There's actually a government department that's supposed to deal with it, but they don't do it. They just don't do it. It's like when I was working in the Galapagos. You know the Galapagos Rangers. We give them a vote, we do all this thing, but they're not interested in doing their job, they're just interested in getting paid and at the same time, a lot of them are just bribed, you know, to turn and look the other way. It's a real problem. I just don't trust most government agencies to. There's no enthusiasm there. I've always said that you know you can't pay people to do what volunteers do.

Theresa (Tree) Mercer: 52:16

True, Very true. The volunteers have passion and yeah.

Captain Paul Watson: 52:23

Yeah, it's true.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 52:25

You have a large organization. The Captain Paul Watson Foundation has lots of chapters.

Captain Paul Watson: 52:31

But it's not that large.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 52:33

Really it seems like it is.

Captain Paul Watson: 52:36

It took me 50 years to build up Sea Shepherd. So when they took away, they took the ships, they took the assets, they took the membership, they took all that stuff. So I had nothing. It was only because I had the support of people like Jean-Paul DeGioia and others who you know longtime supporters and people when they find out what happens, they come and they support us, but they control access to everything. So you know you can't make a comment on their socials is blocked, it's deleted. They completely control the information on that.

Captain Paul Watson: 53:05

I think the thing that bothers me most about it is that they completely betrayed our principles, and the main principle being that of aggressive nonviolence to aggressively intervene. And I know when I was dismissed from them in 2022, the reason being I was too controversial and I was too confrontational and they wanted to go mainstream. We got plenty of mainstream organization, didn't need another one. But I think it had a lot to do with the fact that these guys who I had known for some of them up to 20 years, had suddenly now they had because of whale wars they had nice paying jobs and job security.

Captain Paul Watson: 53:42

And that became more important than the work to do. They offered me $300,000 a year to not do anything, to not give any talks, don't talk to journalists, don't give any lectures and don't write any books. We'll give you $300,000 a year just to be a figurehead. And I said no. And when I said no, and in fact actually what happened at the board meeting was I said, look, I can't support this Because they had maneuvered me off the board because of the red notice and everything, and that once I was maneuvered off, they put all sorts of new people on there and dismissed anybody who supported me. And I said I can't support this. And and the the new, the chairman, there, he looks at me and he says and I hate to say, but his exact words or he says, um, you're an employee, you do what you're told well, let me ask you about the John Paul DeGioia.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 54:29

They were painting some names on the ship from certain donors. I know we're hoping to see resilient earth radio and podcast up there.

Captain Paul Watson: 54:39

We have a great artist and she's putting everybody's names on the on the wall. Her name's Adele, so that project's finished. Your name would be up there right now. I'll get them to send you a picture. That'd be cool. But the John Paul DeGioia is doing fine. It's a former Scottish fisheries patrol boat. But the other ship that we have the Bandero's even more interesting. Right. We bought that from the Japanese and they didn't know they were selling it to us. They were pretty upset. Found out it to us. They were pretty upset when they found out they did. They not only sold it to us, they delivered it to Korea to us. So that vessel's now in Australia. But this is the second time I've done that. I bought the Sam Simon from them back in 2011, I think. So they fell for the trick twice.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 55:23

Are there any last words that you would like to say to our audience?

Captain Paul Watson: 55:28

That everybody has an obligation and responsibility to make sure that we protect life, diversity and interdependence of species in the ocean, because the reality is, if the ocean dies, we die, because our entire existence depends upon a healthy ocean. And the other thing I tried to get across and I just wrote a children's book about this is we all live in the ocean, because the ocean is not just the sea, it's the water planet. It's water in constant circulation. So sometimes it's in the sea, sometimes in ice, sometimes underground, sometimes in the clouds and sometimes in the cells of every living plant and animal on the planet. That water is constantly moving through all those different mediums. So the water in your body right now, which was 70% of your body, was once recently in ice or in the sea, or in the clouds, or in the body of an elephant or of a redwood tree or whatever. It's constantly moving. So when I ask children what is the ocean and the answer is we are the ocean. This is the ocean planet. Everything here is the ocean.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 56:28

This is the ocean planet. Everything here is the ocean, the ocean planet and interdependence.

Captain Paul Watson: 56:33

Only because we're land animals, we call it the earth, but otherwise it should be the planet ocean.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 56:39

Agreed, agreed More awareness, too. That seems like just a small amount of 2D land. Living people seem to forget this is a blue marble. When you look at it from space, it's mostly ocean. So thank you so much for that, captain Paul, and best wishes on your future journeys and efforts, and and for being right where you are right now, right across from the Louvre. That is tremendous. Oh thank you, wonderful. And say hello to Lamia for us.

Captain Paul Watson: 57:17

Will do, thank you.

Leigh Anne Lindsey: 57:36

Thanks for listening to the Resilient Earth podcast, where we talk about critical issues and positive actions for our planet. Resilient Earth is produced by Planet Centric Media, a 501c3 nonprofit, and Seastorm Studios Inc, located on the rugged North Sonoma coast of Northern California. I'm Leanne Lindsey, producer and host, along with co-hosts and co-producers Scott and Tree Mercer of Mindenoma, whale and Seal Study, located on the South Mendocino and North Sonoma coasts. The music for this podcast is by Eric Alleman, an international composer, pianist and writer living in the Sea Ranch. Discover more of his music, animations, ballet, stage and film work at ericalamancom. You can find Resilient Earth on Spotify, apple and Amazon podcasts, iheartradio, youtube, soundcloud and wherever you find your podcasts. Please support us by subscribing or donating to our cause.