Greenpeace vs. Sea Shepherd: An Unfortunate Conflict
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.
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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.
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
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/
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
greenpeace is just jealous of the press that the sea shepherds have been getting…
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.
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.