Who is Paul Watson, the anti-whaling activist facing extradition to Japan?

Boarding conspiracy: the sentence slams, this July 21, 2024, to justify the arrest of Paul Watson by the Danish police. The founder of the NGO Sea Shepherd had just arrived in the bay of Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, aboard his impressive blue ship, the John Paul DeJoria . With his crew of 25 volunteers, he was heading towards the Northwest Passage to oppose the work of the Kangei Marua brand new Japanese factory ship, which is preparing to hunt whales in the North Pacific.

It is this kind of muscular actions that have made the character’s reputation. Originally from New Brunswick (Canada), Paul Watson nourished his passion for the sea in 1968 by joining the coast guard, then the merchant navy. Three years later, mobilized against a nuclear test by the American army, he participated in the first operations of the Greenpeace movement. The unexpected encounter with a dying sperm whale, harpooned by a Soviet whaler, changes his career. The non-violent approach of the environmental organization no longer suits him. He wants to move on to more muscular and more perilous actions.

To this end, in 1977 he founded his own NGO, Sea Shepherd, the “shepherd of the seas”. Paul Watson highlights the illegal fishing practices carried out by many countries with complete impunity. His status as a whistleblower has earned him numerous legal actions. In 2012-2013, the man remained in extraterritorial waters for fifteen months. An arrest warrant was issued against him for damage and injury inflicted on a Japanese whaling ship and its crew in Antarctica. A campaign of “harvesting” of these cetaceans by Japan, however declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2014.

A petition for his freedom

Paul Watson has an impressive record to his credit. More than 5,000 whales have been saved. But also a dozen fishing vessels have been sunk, and as many others rammed. A long-time vegan and anti-speciesist, the activist seems to have fallen into line in 2014 by settling in France, where he got married and started writing. “Paul is an inspiration to many,” says Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, who recently visited him in prison. “But you rarely accomplish this kind of action without making enemies.”

The various requests for his release have, for the time being, remained a dead letter, despite the mobilization of personalities around a petition that has already collected more than 70,000 signatures. Even Emmanuel Macron intervened with the Danish authorities. If Watson were finally extradited, it would be a severe blow to this international mobilization, while Japan is preparing to resume large-scale whale fishing far from its territorial waters in 2025. The recent construction of the Kangei Maru testifies to this. More than 100 meters long, the ultramodern ship is equipped with drones and small harpoon boats. It was inaugurated on May 21. Two months, to the day, before Paul Watson’s arrest.