Greenpeace issued a lengthy statement on their website in an attempt to further distance themselves from Paul Watson and Sea Shepherd yesterday. With an aim at setting the record straight, Greenpeace made the statement out of frustration with what it claims are lies and falsehoods propagated by Watson, compounded by a general public misconception that Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd are associated with one another.
Greenpeace takes issue with what they describe as a fundamental difference in the anti-whaling tactics practiced by each organization. It is interesting to note how Greenpeace characterizes and differentiates their tactics versus that of Sea Shepherd, particularly their characterization of what constitutes violence.
For Greenpeace, violence constitutes doing something that might put a human being in jeopardy, something they say Sea Shepherd and Watson are guilty of.
However, in their attempt to illustrate how proactive they are in the fight to save whales, Greenpeace makes reference to how in the past, Japanese whalers run from their ship at high speed when faced with a potential confrontation.
Regardless of Greenpeace’s non-violent policies, would the Japanese ship run from them, or resort to bringing the coast guard, if there wasn’t a perceived threat of violence? The success of Greenpeace’s anti-whaling efforts is clearly connected to the willingness of Sea Shepherd to take tough action and thereby instilling fear of the protesters in the whalers’ minds.
And anyway, is there a huge difference between sabotaging a propeller or sinking an unmanned whaling vessel (Sea Shepherd tactics) and blocking a harpoon vessel from shooting a whale with your ship (a Greenpeace tactic)? All these tactics are designed to achieve the same result, namely to prevent or reduce the killing of whales, and none particularly put lives at risk. Can’t we all just get along?
Image credit: Michael Dawes at Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
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Marika Collins
Marika Collins is a writer, editor, and photographer who cares deeply about animal rights, social justice and the environment. She's a gadget freak and camera aficionado with a book collecting addiction and a mean sweet tooth. Has pen, will travel.
81 Responses to Greenpeace vs. Sea Shepherd: An Unfortunate Conflict
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Jeff,
No major change has ever been accomplished by doing nothing. It’s great that both organizations are out there doing something. If you are worried about climate change and polar bears, stop driving, and especially, stop supporting oil companies. Petroleum is in much more than just fuel tanks.
I think someone back there said that whales were fish.
Even if they were fish, why shouldn’t we save them? Sea Shepherd is doing what no other governments want to do. That is what’s going on. If the IWC would step up and their governments followed, the Sea Shepherds would not have to disrupt the whaling fleet. They could focus on the billions of other problems we created in the oceans.
Whales and all mammals including us evolved from fish. So we are all fishish.
I find Greenpeaces comments above, and there backdown in going to the southern ocean amazing. In years gone by, Greenpeace HAS been activly involved in trying to save species, using similar tactics Sea Shepherd are doing now.
But times have changed, highly paid suits…having seen the fruits of the publics abhorence of commercial slaughter of the wildlife we all share, have taken over the purse strings of GREENPEACE, and sending a ship to the Southern Ocean to protect whales, (money specificly raised for that purpose $$ MILLIONS)has been deemed a to costly excercise.
In the past few years, GP has ventured into the southern ocean, for no other purpose than taking photos of the whales dying, to expedite fund raising for whale protection for the comming year.
There refusal to cooperate with sea Shepherd, and there reasons why, are nothing more than spin doctoring, as teaming up with Sea Shepherd, would incur extra costs….by having to actually DO something.
The whales are dying….even while a 20 year long moritorium on whaling has been in place.
Organisations, governments and the international public have debated and pleaded with whaling nations to recognise the ban….after 20 years, they are still dying.
Sea Shepherd have proven they are the whales only chance.
And somewhere along the way….GP has lost sight of the real issues, and the importance onced placed on the health of our planet has changed.
Gp’s importance now lies with there bank balance, highly paid suits and free holidays.
They have lost me forever, my moneys on the team making a difference “Sea Shepherd”.
SSCS now have a show on Animal Planet. I have also read about Paul Watson’s history with Greenpeace. I think there is reason to believe that what drives Watson is personal glory. Shepherding the Sea is just a vehicle for him to attain personal glory. Oh well.
The French sank a Greenpeace ship with explosive charges while in port years ago. The same or worse could befall the Sea Shepherd ship. I’m surprised that they have not been rammed by a Nipon whaling ship. It would be easy to do the dirty deed in darkness. The ship and crew would just be victims of the cruel cold sea.
ok, how about learning a little bit about boats and the ocean, before you run out there and put lives in danger?
Seems like alot of these peopl dont knw their way around a boat.
Whaling or not, have any of you ever heard of common sense?
mogul said:
“I suspect that the Sea Shepards program “Whale Wars” is now causing the diversion of GP donations to SS and so is causing the media war between the two.”
spot on!
I stopped donating to GP years ago and now support SSCS and so does every friend, family member and eco-envronmentalist I know and convince them to support Watson and his crew. The Japanese don’t care about world-view, protests and politics, they’ll hunt every last whale into extinction and poor GP will have no more snuff films to post on their website.
The fact that GP is not out there in the Antarctic, DOING SOMETHING, speaks volumnes.
GO SEA SHEPHERD!
What do you do when a bully continously bullies you and finally does the unthinkable and “beats you up”…YOU FIGHT BACK!
These Japanese whalers have been beating up our oceans and killing our gentle giants!
So it’s time to fight back…
GO SEA SHEPARD!!!! Sometimes it takes a percieved violent action to deal with violent people!
HOLDING UP SIGNS IS LUDACRIOUS!
I’d go toe to toe with any japanese whaler and I’m a 39 year old mother of three girls who’s a paramedic.
My job is to “help” others, which is what I’d do after I beat the hell out of em….
God Bless You All
I totally support the Sea Shepard. They are heroes in my book
I suspect that the Sea Shepards program “Whale Wars” is now causing the diversion of GP donations to SS and so is causing the media war between the two. I heard about SS about a year ago and was intriged by their methods. They are not pirates technically but they proudly display the pirate flag and use a black ship. They know the PR game and have generated more of it(good or bad) than GP has in ten years. My future donations are going to SS.
I’m sitting here watching “Whale Wars” for the first time. Yes, I think whaling should be stopped, but these Sea Shepherd yahoos are going to get somebody killed. They’re nothing more than seafaring vigilantes and are giving conservationists a bad name.
Brothers and sisters? What a moon bat! In America we’ve killed countless millions of baby HUMANS! By sucking them out of the womb limb by limb and do you whakos say anything about that. I think whales are awesome creatures an should never be harvested illegaly. But damn they are FISH! It would be the best television ever if the Japanese would turn and torpedo that moron captain.
greenpeace is just jealous of the press that the sea shepherds have been getting…
In the first place, as stated incorrectly by Marika, Greenpeace does not place its Ship between the Whaling ship and the whales, but only uses a zodiac to hold up protest signs or ride on harpooned dead whales backs for photo-opportunities. That is NOT saving whales! With all the many millions of dollars donated to GP and their Anti-whaling program over these many decades, if GP really wanted to stop whaling it would have been done a long time ago. Whaling makes millions for GP so why actually put a stop to it? Also, their “volunteers” – those people who ring and annoy you for money or hand out flyers are paid – all with YOUR donations. Greenpeace is a business. SEA SHEPHERD is run by unpaid volunteers – big difference in the two Groups. No donation money is spent on Media because SSCS does not advertise like GP does. Instead, they money goes into direct action campaigns. SSCS does more on a shoe-string budget in one year to save Marine Life than GP does in a dozen years. I had been a GP supporter since it began in the 1970′s when GP was serious about saving whales. GP no longer has my support after discovering how many millions they waste on media, paying officials, and volunteers. GO GET THEM SEA SHEPHERD! At least they actually DO they job of stopping the Whalers.
What the whalers don’t want is to be documented with eye witness accounts/video footage in the hands of people who won’t spin it their way. Whaling can continue in large part because people don’t see it happening.
That’s a good reason to not stay around in the presence of either organization. A threat of violence isn’t required to make whalers run.
The main thing most people in Greenpeace care about is the money they can get from suckers… er.. donors to support their drug habits.
I used to think differently about them until I actually WORKED for Greenpeace.
Both are extremist eco-terrorism groups if you ask me. Thus, they are in the same category anyway.
I feel that Greenpeace has become more than a little “institutionalised and proper”. Now regarded as “politically correct” by many and finding it more “comfortable” to rest on a few laurels.
My involvement in conservation over many years, a lifetime in business and direct dealings with Governments and their army of bureaucrats has taught me that, often, one has to go for the throat, grasp the nettle and not always comply with what is “right and proper”. The whole system of government and procedure is designed to stifle many of the well-intentioned. These systems are less likely to offer solace to active people even though they may be supported by an army of law-abiding citizens. As in commando-type tactics, the small size of dedicated, highly-active groups is more than compensated by their drive, commitment, determination and ability to “think outside the square”. Unlike Sea Shepherd, Greenpeace has become far too predictable – any army fighting in that vein usually fails. The small, elite corps are deployed to go for the jugular – so it is with Sea Shepherd.
Both Sea Shepherd and Greepeace need to bury any differences and let’s “get on with the job” – the fractious in-fighting is ruining our collective chances of success.
Sadly, I must conclude, that in this instance I believe Greenpeace is being quite foolish in its approach and I put this down to too many intellects in its midst more prone to use process rather than more direct action. Process, after all has been set up by bureaucrats, to largely entrench wayward political thinking. It is slow, lumbering, frustrating and incapable of responding quickly to the fast-deteriorating natural disasters all too evident around us. We need action not more verbal gymnastics.
Greenpeace bury your “snobbery” and tap the enthusiasm of Sea Shepherd. The ridiculous “Mexican stand-ff” between both parties MUST end – pronto!
Bob
New Zealand
When an organization like Greenpeace takes issue with violence of another “earth-centric” organization, you *know* something is amiss. As aggressive as Greenpeace is, their distancing themselves from the Sea Shepherd is a clear indication of being too aggressive.
I don’t know about the Sea Sheppards. They ran one of their ships into a Canadian Coast Guard ship last year for the sea hunt.
And they did. Don’t tell me they didn’t I saw the damage.
Nathan- On top of what Alex said about both organizations causing Japan to miss its quota, they also causes Japan to literally reduce its target for the first time in 20 years
http://planetsave.com/blog/2008/11/18/greenpeace-japan-cuts-whale-hunt-quota/
Gram42,
There are six different ships in the Japanese whaling fleet. If one is disabled, it usually is only temporary. But assuming that it is permanent damage, why couldn’t one of the other ships simply pick up the crew members? They also have small boats on the ship for emergencies they could use.
And how exactly does it send any message other than “stop killing whales”? That’s all they’re doing in the Antarctic, they’re not also fishing.
-Alex
whatever it takes to stop whaling is fine by me. direct action brings about change. keep on keeping on defending our beautiful brothers and sisters of the sea!
Disabling a ship at sea definitely poses a risk to the lives of the crew. If a ship is not under power at sea there is always a chance that it could get into a dangerous situation.
Disabling a ship also sends a needlessly strong statement. Instead of saying “don’t kill whales or other sea mammals” they are saying “don’t go fishing. Period.”
well screw them both, i think the whalers should have a shiny .50 cal mounted on their brow and perforate those damn hippies.
Nathan,
Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace have both helped cause the Japanese to miss their whaling quota the last two years.
-Alex
Look, Sea Shepard is a bunch a pirates, and they will get what’s coming to them. I by no means support whaling, but having seen what Sea Shepard is doing, they’re totally undermining their own movement.
What’s going to happen when the Sea Shepard does sink a whaling ship causing a serious loss of life? How will that aid the cause? All its going to do, is formally move Sea Shepard into being called pirates, and give Japan the political will to use military force against greenpeace and the like.
Back in the 80′s when the french sank the rainbow warrior, what largely gave Greenpeace support was the fact that up until then they had been non-violent. That’s why Greenpeace, however irritating they are, is still widely supported. However, as soon as violence is being used against a non-violent adversary(the Japanese haven’t exactly been seeking out Sea Shepard ships to sink them), you’re really asking for trouble.
Honestly, I hope that Sea Shepard is interdicted by a coastguard vessel or something and put under arrest before they kill someone.
Are you kidding me? Fouling a prop at sea in the south pacific is dangerous for everyone on that ship. Throwing stuff onto the deck in the hopes of having a man slip into the water where he would be dead in minutes is violence. The Sea Shepard and it’s crew are pirates and should be tried and jailed. The forced a boarding of a third party vessel at sea and should be glad the Japanese don’t want the publicity cause if you forced a boarding of my ship I would shoot you.
Listen whaling is bad and I hope is stops, but Greenpeace, Sea Shepard and the like have never in there history stopped them from taking their full quota of whales, all they have done is put people in danger. The only way this will ever stop is by changing the law not by attacks at sea.
lol @ ryan. spot on mate. Sea shepard don’t mess around, greenpeace needs to grow some balls. they can hang all the banners they want while sea shepard is in the face of these butcher whalers.
Keep up the great work sea shepard.
sea sheppard is doing a great job, these whalers deserve no mercy.
Greenpeace: ‘Harpoon that whale and we’re gonna, uh. . . write you a letter and watch you from our boat while giving you a menacing glare!’
Sea Shephard: ‘ We’ll stuff up your prop and shove that harpoon up your butt!’
Which tactic works better?
Nice short article that is to the point. I did not even know about the Sea Shepherd until ‘Whale Wars’ docudrama started. Before that I had a deep loathing for Green Peace and there skewed perception of the world. Pretty easy to develop that perspective when they are media queens. In the end do they help though? Yes. They do expose the wrong and do help bring change. Do they also take credit from the actions of others? Heck ya.
In the end, however, actions speak louder than words. Sea Shepherd seems to have a passion for one thing, saving whales, and with this goal and focus they bring direction to change one thing to help make the whole better. Green Peace seems to also have a singular passion, themselves. They focus on saving the “world” which spreads them thin and exposes the lack focus. They are like fashion, always changing and laughing at the past interests as boring and so “yesterday” while always grabbing media attention and stealing credit for creating the original trends when others did.
Of course media attention is great/needed to expose something. But do you do something to get media attention or do you see it as icing on the cake? We know the Sea Shepherd has done things to gain media attention, but not every act tries to grab media attention. It more like a “lets do this to get the attention and let people know what we are doing.” versus “hey check out out HUGE “GREEN PEACE” banner we poorly made and can be see by even the lowest camera zoom level.”.
In the end I think Green Peace is becoming yesterday’s fashion and they are in fact a little jealous of the media attention the Sea Shepherd has recently gained.
I for one think whale meat is delicious
The Sea Shepherd practices piracy plain and simple. Just the act of trying to foul a propeller to disable a ship in the Antartic should be grounds for the whalers to use violence in return. A Greenpeace person on the show itself said it best “…have set back diplomatic relations…”. It is only a matter of time before one of the propeller lines works or they hit some worker in the face with their acid bombs.
I would also like to note how much of a coward the captain and the first mate are. They constantly play on the volunteers emotions. Manipulating them into taking all the chances and all the dangers. It is criminal that two fat old men with an agenda are risking the lives of kids in a useless attempt to stop something that has been happening for hundreds of years.
Not to mention that driving all over down there in a big boat near the whales helps the whales lose their fear of humans. And makes it so they won’t run from the whaling vessles.
The Sea Shepherd people are criminals that should be treated as such.
Bean- As opposed to your one liner contribution to this discussion, which you filled with facts, thoughtful counterpoints, and sources?
Meta4- To purport that it is unacceptable to even bring ethics discussions into direct action is pretty absurd. I am not condemning the Sea Shepards by any means (in fact, I’d say i pretty whole-heartedly support them), but the whole point of protests is to get those in power to act more ethically.
Therefore, it is imperative that we constantly call into question our own ethics in regards to our actions. Becoming our enemy is the scariest thing that could happen. While we can’t be free of all unethical actions, and sometimes we have to be content committing small acts that counter our ethics for the sake of the greater good, we must also not carry a blind “ends justify the means” attitude.
This is the most ridiculous conflict ever. For one, each organization has fervently dedicated their resources to the charitable act of species defense, where each person involved is sacrificing their time in energy in accomplishing this.
Another thing is that whatever bickering and naysaying happens, those resources and energy are now directed inward.
Be it that the Japanese perception is that the two organizations are in collaboration, or that the rest of the world’s is, both are trying to nonviolently end whaling.
BUT
If Greenpeace is saying that it’s violent for Sea Shepherd to confront the Japanese whaling vessels because it endangers THE SEA SHEPHERD’S crew, then that’s like calling them Kamikazes.
What a weird twist on an otherwise gripping, and profound drama.
what a worthless article, barely any content or information
While I agree that whaling is a horrible concept, I have to say that after watching the Whale Wars show on Discovery channel, the Sea Shepherd’s are basically pirates. While I admire some of them for their resolve, I find some of their actions completely stupid and bordering on a death wish. It is only a matter of time before a confrontation is going to happen with the outcome being death for a number of people. Their actions have made me consider them as a group I would not want to be associated with and will not support.
- Jim
Gabe has it right, Jeff has no idea obviously.
It’s not the fear of violence that makes whalers run from Greenpeace, it’s the monitoring of their actions. Greenpeace continually films and publishes what goes on during the hunt, so the whalers do everything they can to reduce this including putting up their own banners on the decks of their ships and like you mentioned, running. Greenpeace has a very well known, 30-year history of non-violence, so I don’t see how the whalers running automatically implies “fear of violence”.
I wouldn’t call Sea Shepher violent by any means, but it certainly crosses a line Greenpeace does not wish to.
HBX,
From Greenpeace:
“We differ with Paul Watson on what constitutes violence. He states that nobody has ever been harmed by a Sea Shepherd action. But the test of non-violence is the nature of your action, not whether harm results or not. There are many acts of violence — for example, holding a gun to someone’s head — which result in no harm. That doesn’t change their nature. We believe that throwing butryic acid at the whalers, dropping cables to foul their props, and threatening to ram them in the freezing waters of the Antarctic constitutes violence because of the potential consequences. The fact that the consequences have not been realized is irrelevant.”
The question is whether Greenpeace’s tactics (which include chasing the ships) would be effective if Sea Shepherd were not there “holding the gun” to the whalers’ heads. In other words, does Greenpeace exploit Sea Shepherd’s “violence” for the success of their campaign?
-Alex
Shame on everyone involved, you are only seeking to garner attention for yourselves and make money off the plight of the whales. Every season the whalers leave port you follow in your hydrocarbon spewing death machines, doubling the rate of global climate change and hastening the inevitable extinction of the polar bear. If you truly cared you’d stay on land and not put to sea, one of the most fragile ecosystems we have on earth.
Alex,
There is a difference between me telling you I’ll beat you up if you don’t stop acting stupid (threat) and beating you up for acting stupid (action).
See? They are not equally bad, and the “fears” are invented anyway since Greenpeace does not use violence.
greenpeace is just jealous of the press that the sea shepherds have been getting.
Gabe,
Do you think they really mind video footage of their whaling being taken? There’s already plenty of that available, I don’t see why they’d be so afraid of there being more.
-Alex
So, I think there’s good info here, but one key assumption here isn’t accurate – the whaling boats do NOT run due to the perceived threat of violence, but rather to avoid the exposure of their whaling practices via video, press releases, etc., by either Greenpeace or Sea Shepherd. The need, or perceived threat of violence, is not the underlying motivation here, and in that, both violent and nonviolent actions are equally effective. The rub though, is that by engaging in violent direct action, the Sea Shepherd has effectively cut themselves out of the political arena. Although their tactics are quite effective on the ground, when they can find the whaling fleet, their overall strategy dooms them to returning each and every year to the southern ocean, with little chance of long term success. This annual game of hide and seek will do little to protect the whales in the long term.
Greenpeace as a history of stomping on more radical forms of direct action, including earth first, not to mention ELF… And any conversation about morality, or being “bad” should be left for ethics class… where one is quickly robbed of the security of assuming moral absolutes. This is not about holding the moral highground but saving whales… And green peace deserves to loose respect in environmental communities due to thier lack of solidarity.
Also, Everyone should read “How Non-violence Protects the State” or Derek Jensen’s “Endgame.”
Andrew,
I think the point is that yes, the whalers run from both of them, but isn’t the fact that they run from Greenpeace evidence that the whalers fear what the activists could do? And isn’t that how Greenpeace defined violence in their press release — using the threat or the fear of violence is just as bad?
-Alex
There need to be more Sea Shepard’s!
Actually, the whalers usually also run from Greenpeace. Here’s a blog from the last whaling season about it.
Totally agree with you that we need to keep the focus on the issue.
Yeah…An article about Japanese whalers running on the GREENPEACE WEBSITE. There's a real reliable source…
Let's get one thing straight, that the article fails to mention. Greenpeace is all for the diplomatic approach to almost every single topic or conflict they come across. They are willing to jump through legal hoola hoops, picket and prance about with their 'non violent' tactics.This is why they are called 'protesters'. If you've ever noticed, the Japanese do NOT fear Greenpeace. Look at the fact that Greenpeace has a rather large base of operations IN Japan. Why? Because the Japanese prefer to have the Greenpeace party around; wasting time with politics and keeping the spotlight off their actual operations.
Sea Shepherd, on the other hand, and with great controversy, pushes mitslef into the faces of the whaling operations; refusing to stand by while whales are killed. These volunteers are ready to put themselves in harms way to defend the whales with their very lives if neccesary. Ever notice how Sea Shepherd volunteers are referred to as 'activists' as opposed to 'protesters'?