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.
Andrew on December 18th - The article states that (are you sure you read the article?)
“Greenpeace makes reference to how in the past, Japanese whalers run from their ship at high speed when faced with a potential confrontation.”
Animal Planets involvement is about entertainment and advertising revenue. Sea Shepherd’s involvement is about personal glory as well as whale conservation. Greenpeace is about whale conservation and struggling to remain relevant.
I watched the “Whale War” series and what I observed didn’t really make for great television: a lot of very small incidents trumped up by the crew to be monumental earth-shaking encounters. Like the supposed shooting. Lame.
But, the Sea Shepherd society will undoubtedly get a lot more funding and a second shot from Animal Planet. Expect a lot more daring-do next season in the attempt to make for some interesting viewing. Perhaps the Japanese should be sent a copy of the script so they can perform a few “slip and falls” from the acid hurled aboard, and also be seen holding their noses from the stink bombs. They are much too stoic for my taste at present.
One thing I could do with a lot less of is the Sea Shepherd’s captain and crew congratulating themselves profusely for the most trivial of deeds. It’s laughable. I would also suggest they set to sea with a barber and a beautician this year, not to mention a few able-bodied sailors.
Sounds like eco terrorism to me. Instilling fear into the lives of the whalers. No wonder all the actual eco groups are compared to terrorists. But it’s all justified right? Americans afraid to fly, 3000+ american deaths = America pulling out of the middle east, no more blood for oil. Whalers afraid to hunt whales, Ships sunken and rammed, people on board both these ships having their lives in endangered because some eco group wants to ram the whaling ship = No more hunted whales.
In that case, kill more americans to stop the oil greed. Destroy more whaling ships, endanger more lives onboard to end whale hunting.
I have been following this issue for several years now and have come to the conclusion that Greenpeace has grown to such a size that it is now more of a business then it is an activist organization.
The business Greenpeace is in is selling a myth that they actually do something about the slaughter of whales.
The business that Sea Shepherd is in is enforcing laws that governments can’t or will not enforce themselves.
It is becoming more apparent that Greenpeace is jealous about the publicity that sea Shepherd had been getting for the last few years.
It must be effecting the Greenpeace “CORPORATIONS” PROFITS………..
Greenpeace has become a joke………
No Japanese whaler is going to run from a Greenpeace ship because there will not be one around to run from. They did not go to Antarctica this year and say they have no plans to go in the future.This is despite the fact that they have campaigned vigourously and raised millions of pounds specifically for this purpose.
On Boxing day this year the BBC News Channel broadcast a programme called “Jonah And The Whalers” in which a reporter accompanied Greenpeace to Antarctica during the 2007/2008 season to witness the Japanese whalers in action. The reporter said that Sea Shepherd arrived on the scene and threw acid at a whaling boat. He also said that Sea Shepherd were a violent organisation.
Anyone watching this programme would naturally assume that they meant sulphuric acid or something highly corrosive and dangerous and not rotten butter!
The fact is that Greenpeace have not only raised millions of pounds under false pretences but they are also happy to make slanderous accusations about the only people that do have the courage to stand up to the whalers. I believe that these comments were deliberately made in an attempt to starve Sea Shepherd of funds at the very time they were needed most.
Greenpeace might as well stick a harpoon on the front of their boat and go and join the Japanese, but then again there would be less profit in it.
The only reason that whalers run from Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd is because they know they (the whalers) can’t attack them. Both Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd (and virtually all “violent” protest groups) get away with their questionable tactics is because they can rely on the legal system to scare the whalers away. The protest group has the advantage of being protected by laws against retaliation by their victims. There is nothing innately brave or courageous about anything that the protest groups are doing, and I mean Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd. No one is a hero for standing up to someone whose hands are tied behind their backs. That is in the West and lawful Asian countries. I’d like to see the environmental groups go straight into Arab countries or into the Congo, for instance, and start protesting against the treatement of the environment there. That is something we will never see because the Arabs or Congolese would kill them in a heartbeat. Whether or not we approve of the protest groups aims, their tactics are mostly cowardly. Sorry, folks, that’s the way I see it.
Having just returned from engaging the outlaw Japanese whaling fleet in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary I have just now had the chance to view the various comments. All interesting points of view but all irrelevant. You see I don’t really care what people think about what we do in our efforts to defend the whales. We don’t do what we do for people. Our clients are the whales. We have cut the Japanese kill quota in half for the last three years. That is all the reward we need. And we have done so without hurting a single whaler or sustaining an injury to our own crewmembers. So all the critics can flap their jaws from sunrise to sunset, it is of no concern to us. The truth is that I kind of like all the criticism and the hate mail and threats. It tells me that I’m pissing some people off and it is those people who I view as the problem I am here to oppose. The fact that thousands of whales are swimming free that would otherwise be dead if not for our intervention is all the reward I need. As for Greenpeace. I am a co-founder of Greenpeace and I have no problem with working with them. Unfortunately the gutless and timid bureacrats that run Greenpeace these days have stonewalled us. That however is their problem not ours. Although I believe in cooperation, if they reject it, it has no affect on our activities. We will continue to do what we do best and that is to shut down illegal whaling and fishing operations. And for those who say we are inneffective all I can say is do your frigging homework or just go back to doing what you do best i.e. spouting off about things you know absolutely nothing about.
Creo que deberian existir mas fuerzas como SEA SHEPHRED ya que sin lugar a dudas los resultados son mas efectivos; talvez los resultados de greenpeace son mejores en cuanto a prensa que es a lo que se dedican inclusive mas que a proteger a los oceanos, la accion de SEA SHEPHERD es admirable poner en riesgo sus propias vidas para defender a nuestros oceanos realmente esto nos esta hablando de un compromiso total con lo que hacen cosa que se observa poco en greenpeace…
First of all, the whaling community often has members that has flaws with the law. The whalers always has weapons in their ships. And where they hunt is practically a no man’s land (sea). They will take away anyone that got in front of them.
With all the respect i have for Greenpeace, they has become a bunch of whining kids. They do good, but what they do is ineffective. As a matter of fact, that type of actitute is what allow people like the whalers do whatever they want.
People its about time to realize that passive methods are obsolete in certain issues. Ask yourselves, would you let someone kill other people, you seeing the person doing it, and the police cannot do something? Well unless you’re a coward or just think in yourself only, you would do something or at least try. Similar sutuation happens with the Sea Shepard. And if Greenpeace care so much of people then they should change their organization and go and help them, turn it into a humans rights organization and let the people of Sea Shepard and alike do their work. Remember when words/communication don’t work, action is next. And the whaling, seal hunt,… passed the communication line long ago. So its time that people support the Sea Shepard and volunteer.
The only thing i point out of the Sea shepard is the inexperience of most of the crew. They need more experienced and mature people. Let’s support them!
I read with great interest all the comments here about supporting TERRORISTS…not pirates, not ECO-terrorists, not bandits, Watson, notice the INTENTIONAL non-use of the word CAPTAIN, This pompous jackass has set back the LEGAL efforts to stop whaling by DECADES, while all he does is shuttle BIMBO “stars” around whilst burning fuel oil, and composing his “poetry” which is better left unread. He has no leadership abilities, and expects his flunkies to educate and train the clowns that PAY to sail with an idiot. His flunkies are no better qualified than watson is at seamanship. His tactics are the same used by other terrorists, submit or we will damage, injure, sink you. Those of you that SUPPORT these things are maggots, the same as him. You want to be able to call your own rules, and play the way YOU want, …UNTIL the target you are going after starts playing by the very same rules you’re using. I hope to overhear one of you running your mouths about supporting watson..I will then have the right to BASH YOUR HEAD in at that moment, as I am “legally taking out a terrorist supporter” same thing DIMWIT watson is trying to say… oh, BTW watson, how come you havent returned to Norway, or Iceland ? scared ? I’ve also send a donation to the fund to purchase the Farley when it hits the auction block, it’s a tired old ship, but it’ll look great as the fleet replenishment ship for the Japanese whalers…