Captain Paul Watson Interview

"You can take down an individual, you can take down an organization, but you can't destroy a movement." Paul Watson

Captain Paul Watson, honored with the Jules Verne Award for his environmental activism in 2012, is a fighter with a clear mission: to protect the world's oceans from illegal exploitation and environmental destruction.
"If the oceans die, we die." For decades, Paul Watson has risked his life for the conservation and well-being of marine life. At the age of 27, he founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. In 1978, the Sea Shepherd became the first ship of the now world-famous fleet with the Jolly Roger flag, modified with a trident and shepherd's crook. In a new expanded edition, including a second interview and numerous extraordinary images from the Sea Shepherd archives, Watson vividly recounts the exciting stages of his unique life, opening up an exclusive insight into his highly politicized arrest in Frankfurt in 2012 and his adventurous escape that sent him on a nerve-wracking journey filled with storms and obstacles.

Paul Watson, born in Toronto, is one of the most important environmental activists in the field of marine conservation worldwide. In 1972, Watson co-founded the environmental organization Greenpeace. In 1977, he founded the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an international, direct-action, non-profit marine conservation organization dedicated to preserving biodiversity and the marine ecosystem. In addition to poetry, most recently Desperate Mythologies (2020), Watson has published pathbreaking books as an activist, including "Ocean Warrior: My Battle to End the Illegal Slaughter on the High Seas" and "Dealing with Climate Change and Stress". In 2012, his fight against poaching cost him his freedom when Interpol issued a red notice at the request of Costa Rica and Japan. In March 2019, Costa Rica dropped all charges against Watson who returned to the United States.-

Michele Sciurba is a legal scholar, strategy consultant, human rights advocate, journalist and author. He graduated with honors from the University of Liverpool with a LLM in International Business Law. He completed his PhD in International Law and Public Administration at the IAPM in Kyiv. -

Sarah Schuster studied Comparative Literature and German Philology in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and San Diego, California, and Advanced Creative Writing at the University of Oxford. She works as a writer, journalist, researcher, and caseworker in complex human rights cases.