CAPTAIN PAUL WATSON

The controversial Captain Paul Watson has become a legend of alternative culture. He has managed to captain a career so brutally loyal to his cause that thousands of “aware” individuals stand by him and support his global efforts. Co-founding Director of the Greenpeace Foundation, and Founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Watson has created a global movement few could ever have predicted.

Famous for captaining a fleet that directly blocks the slaughter of cetaceans from whales to dolphins using direct action and interference, Captain Watson has been vilified and prosecuted, yet nothing will stop his passionate pursuit of his just cause.

Underwater360 Editor, Oliver Jarvis, managed to pin down this real-life superhero for an exclusive interview. The full interview, as well as a riveting timeline charting Captain Watson’s incredible career, can be read at www.uw360.asia.

WHY DID YOU FOUND THE SEA SHEPHERD CONSERVATION SOCIETY?

I was a co-founder of Greenpeace and I simply grew tired of bearing witness and hanging banners, so I decided to establish an interventionist anti-poaching organisation using what I call aggressive non-violent tactics. WHY DO YOU DO WHAT YOU DO?

To defend life and diversity in the ocean. It’s also a question of survival. If the ocean dies, we all die.

WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACHIEVE THROUGH

YOUR WORK?

To help build a global movement to defend and protect and save biodiversity in the sea.

WHO IS YOUR ROLE MODEL?

My primary role model is a whale that spared my life in 1975 and gave me an insight into the nature of both his kind and us. My fictional role model is Captain Nemo. My human role model was James Waddell, the captain of the Confederate raider Shenandoah. He sank 37 whaling ships without taking a single human life or causing a single injury, a record I am proud to have kept myself for the past 40 years.

WHAT CAN THE AVERAGE PERSON DO TO HELP PROTECT LIFE IN THE OCEANS?

People can use their talents and skills and harness them to the horses of imagination, courage, passion and action. We need to stop eating the ocean alive. I advocate not eating fish, not dumping our garbage into the sea, not damaging coral reefs, not supporting ecologically destructive fish farms. I advocate volunteering with a group, any group working to protect our ocean. Most importantly, people need to become aware of one very important reality… if the ocean dies, we all die.