00:10:06.640Even though the laws are there, we have all the laws we need.
00:10:09.600If they would simply be enforced, we could make a difference.
00:10:12.460But international trade relations come before the law,
00:10:15.440And for the most part, these laws are simply ignored.
00:10:20.220Yeah, you know, fishing and whaling regulations and enforcements have so many shortcomings.
00:10:27.160And I think, you know, sometimes I ask myself, well, why have these regulations fallen so short?
00:10:32.220But I think the quick answer is greed and who is paying out for the governments to turn their eyes to the other side and not see the raping and pillaging of the oceans.
00:10:44.780And I'm wondering, in your experience, have you seen any cases where regulations have worked in safeguarding species or populations?
00:10:53.240And how often are these regulations commensurate with the actual threats?
00:10:58.720Well, they have worked in certain places.
00:11:00.340We're working in the Galapagos to protect the Marine Reserve there.
00:11:03.300We've been there 18 years, and we have a good working relationship with the Rangers of the Ecuadorian Environmental Police.
00:11:10.500We have a good relationship with the government of Mexico to protect the Paquita and the Sea of Cortez.
00:11:16.360We have good relations with the countries of Gabon, Liberia, Sierra Leone.
00:11:19.980And we have our ships there working with the authorities to stop poaching activities there.
00:11:24.780But most countries are fairly corrupt.
00:11:27.540I mean, two weeks ago in Panama, we were working to protect Coiba Island, which is a marine park.
00:11:33.920Working with the rangers, we arrested, helped the rangers actually arrest an illegal fishing boat.
00:11:39.960Two days later, we were surrounded by five fishing boats.
00:11:42.040One of them rammed into the side of us, and they threatened violence against us.
00:11:45.260We reported that to the Panamanian authorities.
00:11:48.040The Panamanian authorities detained us and searched our vessel and harassed the crew for a day and then said, OK, your papers are in order.
00:11:57.160But in 24 hours later, they said, your order to leave Panamanian waters, you'll be given a military escort out.
00:12:02.920Why? Because we embarrassed Panama, because Coiva Island has been given until February 1st of next year by UNESCO to do something about protecting that island and the Marine Reserve, or else they'll use their World Heritage Site credentials.
00:12:17.900We exposed all of that because the government sides with the fishing operations, whether they're illegal or legal.
00:12:24.140In fact, all over the world, I coined a word for it called homo-peshophobia, which is the politician's fear of fishermen. They usually get their way.0.88
00:12:32.920And, you know, you were a co-founder of Greenpeace, but left the organization in 1977 because you saw the need for more effective tactics, unbounded by bureaucratic structures.
00:12:45.260And I read a quote with you saying, protesting is submissive, like, please, please, please don't kill the whales, end quote.
00:12:53.240So I'm wondering if you can explain why direct action is the only true response to contend with the violence and slaughter taking place in the oceans and why this laser focused interference has been your modus operandi all these years.
00:13:10.720Well, it's been successful. And because of that, we've saved the lives of thousands of whales and hundreds of thousands of seals, millions of fish through that direct intervention. Those are real results. I never got that through signing petitions or demonstrating.
00:13:23.840Are there any specific tactics that you would encourage the next generation to scale up and really run with? Or how could you see the tactics evolving and shifting to stay ahead of the ongoing descent into a high-tech police state that lusts over the blood of resistors as much as marine life?
00:13:46.440I have tried to utilize what I call aggressive nonviolence.
00:13:51.120We've never caused a single injury to a single person in our 40 years of operations.
00:13:56.220And in this way, I think that we're able to show that things can be accomplished without using violence.
00:14:02.620Unfortunately, in our society, just interfering with profits is now called violence.
00:14:11.020Japan, just in the last month, passed all these new anti-terrorism laws.
00:14:15.260One of which is it will now be an act of terrorism to document or even witness the killing of a dolphin in Taiji, Japan.
00:14:22.620It will be an act of terrorism to oppose in any way the whaling operations in the Southern Ocean.
00:14:28.760More and more governments are going this way, sliding, you know, very quickly but quietly into these totalitarian laws that are meant to benefit corporations and to ensure that those who are profiting from exploitation continue to do so unimpeded.
00:14:43.940So it's becoming more and more difficult. The things that we've done over the years in the 70s, the 80s and everything, we can't do those things anymore. There's been laws that have been brought in specifically against the things that we were doing. And that's becoming increasingly more difficult.
00:14:58.900Now, the problem is for a future generation, as things become more and more diminished, is that this nonviolent movement, this aggressive nonviolent movement, as I call it, will become a violent movement.
00:15:12.200People are going to rebel when they see all of these things that are taken away from them.
00:15:17.040And, you know, when they see that the ocean is dying and it's going to directly impact them and their children, then things are going to become violent.
00:15:23.380That's just really the history of human kind.
00:15:25.900I don't advocate that, but I can see it going that way.
00:15:29.640I've been just trying to achieve results without violence,
00:15:32.860and, you know, that seems to have its limitations.
00:15:44.020March 29th, 1910, the little brig days he did sail.
00:15:51.220The morning was clear and the sea was down
00:18:29.440Well, they passed these laws to prevent us.
00:18:31.760for instance, protecting seals in Canada. They passed the Seal Protection Act. Under the Seal
00:18:36.200Protection Act, it's now illegal to witness or document the killing of a seal. In 1983,
00:18:42.040I blockaded St. John's Harbor, kept the entire sealing fleet from leaving for two weeks.
00:18:46.760You know, we'd be blown out of the water if we tried that today. So it's the introduction of new,
00:18:53.000very authoritarian laws, and the fact that people will not hesitate to destroy or kill anybody who
00:19:00.520gets in the way of their profits. Yeah, I see that happening on ocean lands. You know, we're
00:19:07.520seeing that everywhere with people rising up. And going back to when you were saying that you
00:19:13.120believe things will become violent once people start to see the rest of life be slaughtered.
00:19:21.460You know, we can continue pushing the Anthropocene forward. And it's amazing to see that even more
00:19:27.340oil is being drilled even more is being destroyed as we are going closer and closer to the cliff of
00:19:34.320extinction and so you know part of me wonders when you're talking about this violence do you see
00:19:39.280violence as in revolt against the totalitarian regime or you see revolt against each other
00:19:45.560because people inevitably who are relying on these stocks for survival when that's not longer there
00:19:54.040where do people turn? Well that's true and it's going to get even worse because human populations
00:20:00.100increase and their resources become more scarce. The violence is going to be from both ways. Those
00:20:05.940who want more and those who are trying to prevent them from wanting more. We saw just this year the
00:20:12.320violence against the protesters at Standing Rock and one woman lost her arm and were you know
00:20:18.960severely injured and yet our society just said oh well they shouldn't be in the way. You know over
00:20:23.580the last 10 years, over 1,200 environmentalists have been murdered. 1,200, 200, almost 200 this
00:20:30.260year alone. And you don't read about it in the newspapers. Nobody really cares. Most of these
00:20:35.220murders are unsolved. Jairo Moro Sandoval was murdered on the beach in Costa Rica for trying
00:20:40.380to protect turtles. You know, people are being murdered trying to protect the rainforest in
00:20:45.060Brazil. And this is becoming business as usual. And nobody's even blinking now when it happens.
00:20:50.740Oh, an environmentalist has been murdered in Costa Rica. Oh, big deal. You know, I shouldn't have gotten in the way. That seems to be the answer. You know, if one logger or a fisherman were ever to be killed by an environmentalist, you can be guaranteed that this would be on the front page of the New York Times and a major news story around the world. But, you know, we're expendable. They're not.
00:21:09.300Do you foresee that poaching will increase alongside the growing scarcity associated with climate change, economic instability, and relentless human population growth?
00:21:23.400Oh, absolutely. As resources are diminished, those who want it are going to violently get it any way they can. We're seeing that right now.
00:21:30.900I've got a crew on the island in Mayotte in the Indian Ocean.
00:21:34.360It's halfway between Mozambique and Madagascar.
00:21:37.220And we landed there to protect turtles because they're being severely poached.
00:21:40.660The first night we were there with a police escort that we had, we were stoned from the darkness.
00:21:45.800One of our vehicles was burned, and they threatened to kill us.
00:21:48.460They've already burnt down a ranger station.
00:21:50.160They've threatened the lives of the rangers.
00:21:51.960Rangers are being killed around the world.
00:21:53.860Four of them were killed yesterday in Africa.
00:23:18.140for the most part, humans have been conditioned to believe that they are dominant and more
00:23:24.900important, and the needs of humans trump the needs of any other species.
00:23:31.980And going back to how there's such a lack of care when environmentalists go missing
00:23:40.400or are murdered, it's not in the news, and of course there's reasons for this.
00:23:44.840Yeah, I'm really interested in understanding the psychological hurdles and limitations that keep people in a state of complacent consumerism.
00:23:53.360And I'm wondering, how did you get to the place of willingness to risk your personal life to be a defender of the marine world, which, of course, is the origin and sustainer of the terrestrial world?
00:24:07.700You know, especially with the absence of a prison support culture and the shaming and persecution of activists as, quote, eco-terrorists.
00:24:17.820We live in a media culture. The media defines our values. What is important? What isn't?
00:24:24.080Imagine walking into the city of Mecca and spitting on the Black Stone.0.97
00:24:27.540Well, your chances of getting out of that town are pretty remote.0.83
00:24:31.020Or going to Jerusalem and a hack away at the Wailing Wall with a pickaxe, you're going to get an Israeli soldier's bullet in the back and nobody's going to have any sympathy for you.
00:24:37.700Because you have attacked something which is sacred.
00:24:40.460But every day we go into the most beautiful and sacred and mysterious cathedrals of the natural world, the rainforests of Amazonia, the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, and we totally desecrate and destroy these cathedrals.
00:24:55.540Some politician jump up and down with animal costumes.
00:24:58.580I mean, if we were as passionate about these beautiful places in nature and passionate about saving species as we are about a hunk of old meteorite in Mecca or a decrepit old wall in Jerusalem, we literally rise up and fight to protect it.
00:25:14.540You know, people always say to me, how can you ask your crew to risk their life to protect a whale?
00:25:20.160That's asking an awful lot. And I find that very strange in a society that asks young people to
00:25:25.180not only risk their life, but to die for oil companies and real estate and religion. I think
00:25:30.700that risking your life to protect an endangered species is a far more noble pursuit. But again,
00:25:35.920it illustrates how far we're removed from nature. You know, a few years ago, I severely criticized
00:25:39.920because I said that worms and bees and trees are more important than people. And, you know,
00:25:44.540Fox News attacked me on this and said, how could you say anything so outrageous? And I said, well,
00:25:49.020because bees and trees and worms are more important than people.
00:33:14.960I really appreciate how you go directly into the root causes of why we are in this extinction and it's what we view as sacred and how we are connected to the past, the present and the future.
00:33:37.860I think there are people that care and I think there are people who don't want to see
00:33:42.180the destruction of so much of life but they're not actually willing to risk whether their life
00:33:50.420their comfort their routine to actually do something about it so I'm always interested in
00:33:56.720where is that tipping point and perhaps like what you said that tipping point is when
00:34:01.060things get so bad that it's actually affecting them personally and then there's no other choice
00:34:05.640at that point right now i feel like we have illusion of choice especially in the quote
00:34:10.860developed world when really it's a trap and it's a prison that keeps us from really being fulfilled
00:34:16.820and connected to life itself so thank you so much for very clearly stating that moving on into this
00:34:25.480political climate of today things are looking extremely grim under trump and rob bishop's
00:34:32.420Natural Resource Committee, aiming to repeal the Endangered Species Act. But is there any
00:34:38.900potential for the political side of things internationally to create more marine parks
00:34:44.160and refuges and seashores? And what are conservation priorities in the world's oceans today?
00:34:52.560Marine parks and sanctuaries are useless without enforcement. We have plenty of sanctuaries and
00:34:57.880reserves, but very few of them are actually being protected. Like we found out just recently in
00:35:02.900Coiba Island off of Panama, they're openly illegally fishing and the government does
00:35:06.800nothing except to punish anybody who tries to expose what they're doing. So without enforcement,
00:35:11.940like I said, they're useless. But the strength of any movement has to lie in diversity, just like
00:35:16.920the strength of an ecosystem is in diversity. So I do think that everybody doing something
00:35:22.240contributes to a solution. So whether that approach is litigation or education or direct
00:35:28.620action, it all contributes. People just have to go and follow their imagination, you know,
00:35:35.020focus on their abilities to try and make this a better world. And one person can make a difference
00:35:40.080because of Diane Fossey. We still have mountain gorillas in Rwanda. Look at the work of Jane1.00
00:35:44.900Goodall. Look at David Wingate, a biologist in Bermuda, because he lived and intervened,
00:35:49.780the Bermuda storm petrel, a little bird that nobody's heard of, but it would be extinct if
00:35:53.980it wasn't for David. I can't think of anything more noble than because you lived, because you
00:35:58.560intervened, an entire species was protected or an ecosystem was saved. And so I don't put any faith
00:36:05.360in governments. They've never really done anything. In fact, governments cause problems. They don't
00:36:09.560solve problems. My faith is in the passion, the courage, and the imagination of individuals.
00:36:16.080Slavery wasn't ended by the U.S. government.
00:36:18.520It was ended by people like Wilberforce and Douglas.1.00
00:36:20.960Women's right to vote wasn't accomplished through the government.1.00
00:36:24.140They fought it every step of the way.1.00
00:36:26.020It's the women who volunteered and were tortured, basically, and jailed.
00:36:29.800And in the end, Woodrow Wilson signs the amendment and gets the credit for giving women the vote when he, in fact, opposed it right up until the end.0.52
00:36:37.360So governments take credit for the things that individuals actually do.
00:36:40.520But our biggest problem is the fact that governments really don't, you know, don't represent people.
00:37:07.860I think in many ways, the Trump administration is going to shake things up and make people understand that, you know, this stuff has got to stop. But it won't come through government, it'll come through people reacting to what's being done.
00:37:20.460yeah I couldn't agree more and I think building this movement this culture of resistance that
00:37:27.780is about creativity and collaboration and what you were saying that each person has something
00:37:34.500to give each person has something unique and it's not all going to be aggressive non-violence it's
00:37:41.000not all going to be direct action but I do think that even if there are people who will not go to
00:37:46.700the front lines because they have other ways in which they're being called to serve the earth I
00:37:51.840think that everybody should be supporting the people who are putting their lives on the front
00:37:56.680line who are risking jail risking death risking everything to protect the earth for all of us
00:38:04.600and I'm really interested in what that would look like and part of me thinks that more people might
00:38:11.120join these direct action frontline movements if they felt that there was a culture to come back
00:38:17.100to that would support them? Possibly. And I do know that with Sea Shepherd, we got a lot more
00:38:23.060people volunteering to crew on our vessels than we have in the past. Right now, we have over 200
00:38:28.200people voluntarily crewing on our ships. And we have a long list of people who want to. So that
00:38:33.940is certainly something that has changed over the years. And we're constantly under attack. I mean,
00:38:38.980doing what we do means that you have to be prepared to have a lot of people hate you.
00:38:42.820You have to be prepared to get death threats and everything. And you have to just let it all slide
00:38:46.560off your back and focus on what you need to focus on, which is protecting life and not being
00:38:51.380concerned about the odds against us. Reading articles for this interview and learning about
00:38:58.260your work in the world. I just love the fearlessness and the fierceness that you go on
00:39:04.940about walking your talk and living by your convictions and not getting wrapped up in the
00:39:09.880human drama and not getting wrapped up in the people-pleasing conditioning that I think many
00:39:14.760people have been brought up in. I think almost like it's biological that we want to be liked
00:39:19.360because we want to survive in a village setting. But to be able to rise above that and say, no,
00:39:24.920I'm doing this because this is what's right. And if other people don't understand that,
00:39:29.460then so be it like that's not going to actually stop you or me or you know people who are really
00:39:35.820dedicated doing the work and I think it is such a huge lesson to take away just to do the work
00:39:41.080regardless of the backlash and it's really exciting to know that there's more and more
00:39:45.760people signing up to do this work with Sea Shepherd you know another topic that I wanted to
00:39:49.980move on to is captivity of sea life and with Blackfish and SeaWorld I mean it's really been
00:39:57.840getting a lot of attention, then there's kind of this flip side. And I'm wondering, do you feel
00:40:02.880that captive breeding is necessary in certain cases to prevent extinctions? And has it been
00:40:09.100effective at all? Or is the severance from natural habitat just too big of a barrier for these
00:40:15.160programs to have any true success? Well, there's no point in saving a species if you let the habitat
00:40:21.000go. The species and the habitat are intimately entwined. So what's the point of saving the
00:40:27.380vaquita if we don't save its habitat. So this plan right now, Mexico wants to take the vaquita out
00:40:33.020of its habitat. We don't even know if they'll survive. Well, what's the point if there's no
00:40:36.680place to put them back? So I have a real problem with captivity. To me, it's slavery. We're
00:40:42.100torturing these animals, and we have no moral right to do that. So we really have to put an
00:40:48.540end to that kind of thing. Zoos and marine aquariums are simply very cruel places. The
00:40:54.860only exception, I would say, is certain facilities that are set up not for profit, not for amusement,
00:41:01.140but to actually, you know, protect the animals, like elephant sanctuaries in Thailand, or, you
00:41:06.680know, people who are taking in animals that have been abused, that kind of thing. But, you know,
00:41:11.620capturing animals from the wild to put on display for amusement and profit is immorally reprehensible.
00:41:16.500yes and it's really devastating to see these magnificent creatures be put into pens that
00:41:25.480are so small that i could only imagine the pain they're feeling on the daily basis and not seeing
00:41:32.700an end to the misery of their lives i've seen through other extinctions that bringing in
00:41:38.260captivity maybe you will get an offspring but at some point because of not having genetic
00:41:44.020variability, that species will still go extinct. Well, another species that I feel extremely
00:41:49.680connected to is salmon. And ocean fish farming in BC is such a huge problem. I'd seen that Sea
00:41:57.240Shepherd was recently working in British Columbia to expel the Norwegian salmon farm situated off
00:42:02.380the coast. So can you speak about why these farms are having such an impact on wild fisheries and
00:42:08.280what the demands are. We have our sailing vessel, the Martin Sheen, in British Columbia right now
00:42:14.980for the second year of Operation Virus Hunter. And we're working with Dr. Alexandra Morton,
00:42:21.100whose research has demonstrated that the salmon farms are transmitting diseases and parasites to
00:42:27.160wild salmon populations. The Atlantic salmon is an exotic species. It should not be in the Pacific
00:42:32.780Ocean or the other places where these salmon farms are set up, like Tasmania or Chile. You know,
00:42:37.400I remember back in the 80s when this all began, our concern was they were going to escape. The
00:42:41.480industry said, no, there's no possibility of escape. Of course they escaped. Then our concern
00:42:45.720was, well, they're going to dominate and they're going to breed. And again, the answer was, no,
00:42:49.940that's not going to happen. Of course it happened. But what they're doing right now is salmon lice
00:42:53.900are detaching themselves from the farms and latching onto salmon fingerings coming down
00:42:58.720the rivers, and that kills them. What's happening is these viruses, which are being transmitted from
00:43:04.140the salmon farms to the wild salmon is also killing them. The salmon farm, because they're
00:43:08.180so packed together, disease is rampant. And that's why they're heavily dosed with antibiotics and
00:43:13.900hormones and everything. And of course, wild salmon don't have that immunity. So they're
00:43:18.380deeply affected by that. Those people who say that salmon farms are a solution for protecting
00:43:24.140the ocean don't know what they're talking about. It takes 70 fish from the ocean to
00:43:27.920raise just one salmon on a salmon farm. So it's actually taking a lot more out of the ocean just
00:43:33.160raise them in captivity like that. You know, even the flesh of the salmon is a dirty white on a
00:43:38.680salmon farm and nobody's going to buy that. So they actually have to put dye in the food palates
00:43:42.340in order to make it resemble the wild salmon. The whole thing is just reprehensible. And yet
00:43:48.100the Canadian government, the Department of Fisheries, is siding with the Norwegian farmers
00:43:52.000instead of with the fishermen and also the native communities, the First Nation communities are
00:43:56.480being robbed completely and the federal government is doing nothing to protect their interests.
00:44:00.700They're protecting the interests of the corporate salmon farming industry, and they really don't care about the salmon themselves or the people or the First Nations.
00:44:09.360How do you approach the conflicts that have arisen between First Nations and, say, conservationists or governments that, you know, these communities rely on their native food sources?
00:44:22.480Well, for instance, killing whales, they don't have to kill whales.
00:44:25.500They don't have to kill seals in the numbers that they're supporting.
00:44:28.360For instance, nobody has ever intervened against Inuit hunting practices in the Arctic against whales or seals.
00:44:37.040But what the Canadian government has done is that they've confused the public that any attack on the commercial sealing industry with a quota of 425,000 is also an attack on the Inuit industry with a quota of 10,000.
00:44:50.580And what happened many years ago, it was 1986, there was a meeting in Iceland where all these governments got together and said,
00:44:56.540how can we protect our industry? How can we have the public support it? People are against the
00:45:00.860killing of whales, they're against the killing of seals. What can we do? The Canadian Department
00:45:04.500of Fisheries representative came up with a solution. Always link what you're doing to an
00:45:09.660indigenous culture. So this is what they've been doing now. And now that means that the Japanese1.00
00:45:13.780and the Norwegians and the Faroese can also say, well, we're an indigenous culture too,
00:45:17.660so we can do that. Although I don't know how sending whaling ships to the Antarctic can be
00:45:21.900part of their culture, but that's what their claim is. So what they did with the Inuit was0.98
00:45:26.280the Canadian government said, okay, we'll give you these benefits, but you have to support
00:45:30.640the commercial seal hunt. So what we have are Inuit communities supporting the commercial sealers in
00:45:36.880return for benefits from the Canadian government, and the Inuit sealers condemning conservationists
00:45:42.040because we're opposed to the commercial seal hunt. I don't buy into it. I've never been guilted into
00:45:46.980this. I'm saying, you know, we're against the commercial seal hunt. We're not going to be
00:45:49.760influenced by any false propaganda that somehow this is devastating Inuit communities because
00:45:54.580it never has and it isn't. If there are suicides and drug problems in these communities, it's
00:46:00.260not caused by environmentalists or conservationists. It's caused by the abuses perpetuated on them
00:46:05.700by our society and by the government. Nobody has ever opposed, you know, their indigenous hunting.
00:47:54.580well it leads me to thinking about this monumental scale issue we're having with
00:48:06.500food sourcing and what you had mentioned earlier in the conversation that whether it's a dog food
00:48:13.720cat food human food agriculture cattle i mean we are stripping the oceans to make
00:48:20.620feed for other creatures that we then consume. How do you see the solutions for feeding a growing
00:48:27.440population in a way that is protecting biodiversity? There is no such thing as sustainable food
00:48:33.860sources. There's too many people and we've exceeded the carrying capacity. Therefore,
00:48:38.260we're stealing the carrying capacity from other species to make our numbers grow greater. We've
00:48:43.500already in the last 60 years wiped out pretty much 50% of all of the non-human, non-domestic
00:48:50.000animal biomass on the planet and right now we're doing something even more insidious which is we're
00:48:55.260destroying bacteria in the soil so that's going to affect plant-based foods thanks to people like
00:49:00.680monsanto and others so there's simply no such thing as sustainability in 1992 at the environment
00:49:06.120conference in brazil groharlem brentland the prime minister of norway coined that word sustainability
00:49:10.660what it means is business as usual with a justification you know there is no sustainable
00:49:16.820fisheries anywhere in the world. At the COP21 conference in Paris two years ago, I said that
00:49:22.500there's one solution to protecting our oceans, and it's an easy solution. It means we don't do
00:49:26.400anything, and that is we stop commercial fishing. We put a moratorium on all fishing for at least
00:49:33.18050 years. Let the ocean repair itself. Just leave it alone. Let it repair itself. And it can be
00:49:39.260resilient if we leave it alone. For hundreds and hundreds of years, Polynesian shaman would
00:49:44.140declare a bay, say, in Tahiti or Bora Bora. They would say, this bay is taboo, kapoo. If anybody
00:49:49.900fishes here, it's a death penalty. And everybody said, well, that's a little extreme. No,
00:49:54.020because the shaman and the people there understood one thing. If the fish disappeared,
00:49:58.880they would die. And therefore, conservation was a necessity for them. The problem is right now,
00:50:04.680we have no taboo areas anywhere in the world. The fish have no place to hide. And we're catching
00:50:09.620more than the ocean can survive with. Not only that, most of the fish we catch is either thrown
00:50:14.980away or fed to animals or whatever. It's just complete and total arrogant irresponsibility
00:50:20.900on the part of human corporations who are involved in this. There used to be a thing
00:50:24.500called fishermen. They don't exist anymore. Now they're corporations. And the corporations really
00:50:28.660don't care. I call it the economics of extinction. You know, the bluefin tuna is a good example. One
00:50:33.860of these fish is worth about $75,000 on the market in Japan. They could stop fishing tomorrow. They
00:50:39.360still have 10 to 15 years supply and they could allow the fish to recover but they don't want to
00:50:43.660do that because if the fish recover then the price of their commodity that they what they call their
00:50:48.640fish what they term as a commodity in their warehouses will go down because the price is
00:50:53.060determined by scarcity so they want the fish to be scarce and if it goes extinct they will make
00:50:58.500billions of dollars and companies like mitsubishi who own these warehouses and everything they don't
00:51:02.880care they'll just reinvest that money into something else they don't care about the future
00:51:06.360of the species, because it's just another short-term investment for short-term gain.
00:51:12.320Wow. Extinction capitalism. That's disgusting. I absolutely agree that the word sustainable,
00:51:18.180I loved what you said. It's business as usual with justification. And through this conversation,
00:51:23.700you've mentioned a number of issues with whales and sea lions and porpoises and fish. And I'm
00:51:32.580wondering, are there any highlights, anything that you're working on right now that you really feel
00:51:39.740like needs more attention than others? Or if you were just to kind of solidify it into a handful
00:51:45.360of species, or a handful of issues, what would those be? Well, I think the greatest threat right
00:51:51.380now is diminishment of biodiversity. And that's caused by overfishing, illegal fishing, all these
00:51:56.160kind of things. But it's really hard to separate that threat from all the other threats, the death
00:52:01.680the coral reefs, the acidification, you know, plastic pollution. I think plastic pollution
00:52:06.380has the potential to destroy all life in the ocean. There's no way of getting rid of it. It's
00:52:10.520killing alphatross. It's being ingested by krill and zooplankton, which is then in turn ingested by
00:52:16.780fish and by people. Almost any person who eats a fish has microplastics in their body now.
00:52:21.740We just have to stop fishing. It's as simple as that. The crews on all my ships are vegan
00:52:26.360because we're trying to set an example. And of course, people just, well, you guys are a bunch
00:52:30.160animal rights, wackos. No, we're conservationists. I don't think you can be a conservationist unless
00:52:34.120you're a vegan or a vegetarian. When you mentioned that plastics were a big issue,
00:52:39.320you know, I see plastics being an issue in two ways. One, like you're saying, it's
00:52:42.820getting into the guts of these species and they're eating the plastic. Probably many of us who are
00:52:47.840listening see pictures of whales cut open and see birds with their stomachs full of plastic and
00:52:54.300garbage. But also I would imagine that baking in the sun, they're leaching things like BPA
00:53:00.160and poison into the water and probably having a number of effects that maybe aren't even fully
00:53:06.240being studied that are affecting their whole immune systems with the leaching of these toxic
00:53:11.860substances, let alone the oil spills, let alone the nuclear waste and all the other, you know,
00:53:17.820agricultural pollution. You know, when I bring up these large, large issues, I want them to be
00:53:23.740talked about because I think that we need to really look at all the problems straight in the
00:53:27.420face and then walk towards them and I've loved what you've said in this interview that you don't
00:53:33.820feel hopeless just your knowledge understanding the numbers the extinctions in so many different
00:53:38.360countries that this is happening but you continue to go forward with strength with courage with an
00:53:44.000incredible fiery focus and I just so so appreciate that about you well thank you so Edward Abbey
00:53:52.900once said when somebody said life is cruel but he said compared to what you know the fact is if
00:53:57.960you're alive you've got to have hope you've got to be able to continue to to fight for what is right
00:54:02.960you've got to be prepared to take a stand to do what is right like russell mean said you can't
00:54:08.220be concerned about the odds against us you can't be concerned about whether we're going to win or
00:54:12.440lose you just have to act in the moment and do what you can with the hope that it will make a
00:54:17.560difference. Well, if you were to give a few ideas or a few ways that people could get directly
00:54:26.620involved with ocean conservation, what could people do today? I think the best thing is to
00:54:33.120find what you're passionate about and focus on that. It doesn't matter whether it's ocean
00:54:37.460conservation or if it's on land or whatever. If you feel passionate about a particular species,
00:54:42.240devote yourself in whatever way you can to protecting that species or that habitat and
00:54:48.140understand that individuals can make an incredible difference and it's happening more and more i've
00:54:53.620seen so many people who have intervened and even though the odds seemed impossible have actually
00:54:57.920made a difference i think that the more people that can follow that path the more hopeful it is
00:55:02.760for the future well thank you paul and i'd like to just leave the floor open to you however you'd
00:55:07.940like to close this conversation, whatever messages you want to share, how people can support Sea
00:55:13.540Shepherd? Well, Sea Shepherd started as an organization back in 1977. But today, it's a
00:55:19.280movement. It's really decentralized. We're in about 45 different countries. And people in those
00:55:23.980countries act passionately to get involved. We're open to people's suggestions. We're open to
00:55:29.660people's visions. That's the only way I think it's going to make a difference. We can't be
00:55:33.240controlling this situation. We have to allow it to evolve organically. And it's amazing how many
00:55:38.660campaigns we have now around the world. So many people have set up Sea Shepherd chapters and
00:55:43.020whatever, and it's making a difference. So that's what I've always wanted it to be, is a movement,
00:55:47.720not an organization. It's not about me. It's not about even the organization. It's about a mindset.
00:55:53.460The Japanese thought that by shutting me down, they could shut Sea Shepherd down. But what they1.00
00:55:57.580discovered is Sea Shepherd's not me. Sea Shepherd is a movement. And you can stop an individual,
00:56:02.480Well, you can stop an organization, but you cannot stop a movement.
00:56:06.100Thank you so much for having the humility and the wisdom to allow for openness and creativity and decentralization and getting out of the human exceptionalist mindset and saying this is not about me.
00:56:32.480The line grows dry and thirsty, as the memories linger, drifting on the wind, through the mountains like a river, sweet spirit of pines, tall western seas.
00:56:49.300The music you heard today was Mr. Aeneas by Gordon Bach,
00:56:53.860then Wade Maynor and the Sons of the Mountaineers