Paul Watson
Canadian environmental activist
Paul Watson (born 2 December 1950) is the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. He is involved in the environmental movement and the movement for animal rights.
Quotes
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- I think the problem is that we don't really understand what we are. In essence we're just a conceited, naked ape. But in our minds we're some sort of "divine legend", and we see ourselves as some sort of god. That we can walk around the earth deciding who will live and who will die and what will be destroyed and what will be saved. But the fact is we're just a bunch of primates out of control.
- "Sharkwater" documentary
- We're now in the midst of a 3rd World War, but this time the enemy is ourselves, and the objective is to save the planet FROM ourselves. There's no hope for masses of humanity to do anything — they never have, they never will. All social change comes from the passion and intervention of individuals or small groups of individuals. Slavery wasn't ended by any government or any institution. Women got the right to vote not because of any government. The civil rights movement, the same thing. India with Mahatma Gandhi, South Africa with Nelson Mandela. Again, it's always individuals. You need those individuals with the passion and the energy to get involved. In fact, I don't know of any government or any institutions that are doing anything to solve any of these problems. All over the world, all I am seeing is individuals and non-government organizations that are passionately involved in protecting ecosystems and species, and that's where I see some optimism. That's where I see results are happening.
- "Sharkwater" documentary
- All of our targets were criminals, they were all operating in violation of international whaling laws.
- We are pirates of compassion hunting down, hunting down and destroying pirates of profit.
- Intelligence is the ability of a species to live in harmony with its environment.
- I don't eat fish because there is no such thing as sustainable fishing in the world right now.
- The oceans are dying.
- We have intelligent species on our planet that we are not even trying to communicate with.
- We cannot allow activism to be stifled because of all the paranoia going around.
- Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote that you cannot commit an act of violence against a non-sentient object. Back in 1986, the Green Party of Canada tried to toss me out of the Party for sinking whaling ships on the ground that it was a violent act. I pointed out that the Green Party of Canada supported violence when it was convenient politically — for example they supported and continue to support abortion which is, like it or not, a violent act, certainly more violent than sinking some metal into the sea. Violence is not violent when we justify it, be it abortion, or war, or eating meat for example. I support abortion but I'm not a hypocrite about it — it's violent, I accept that. Every American taxpayer accepts the violence that their tax-dollars fund.
- When asked how he addressed accusations of property destruction as being a violent act. Taken from an interview given to the environmentalist magazine, Resistance: Journal of the Earth Liberation Movement
- The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is a conservative organization. I am a conservative. You can't get more conservative than being a conservationist. Our entire raison de etre is to conserve and protect. The radicals of the world are destroying our oceans and our forests, our wildlife and our freedom.
- When asked to respond to questions of whether Sea Shepherd is too radical/extreme. Taken from an interview given to the environmentalist magazine, Resistance: Journal of the Earth Liberation Movement
- It's dangerous & humiliating. The whalers killed whales while green peace watched. Now, you don't walk by a child that is being abused, you don't walk by a kitten that is being kicked to death and do nothing. So I find it abhorrent to sit there and watch a whale being slaughtered and do nothing but "bear witness" as they call it. I think it was best illustrated a few years ago, the contradictions that we have, when a ranger in Zimbabwe shot and killed a poacher that was about to kill a black rhinoceros and uh human rights groups around the world said "how dare you? Take a human life to protect an animal". I think the rangers' answer to that really illustrated a hypocrisy. He said "Ya know, if I lived in, If I was a police officer in Harare and a man ran out of Barclays Bank with a bag of money and I shot him in the head in front of everybody and killed him, you'd pin a medal on me and call me a national hero. Why is that bag of paper more valued than the future heritage of this nation?" This is our values. WE fight, WE kill, WE risk our lives for things we believe in... Imagine going into Mecca, walk up to the black stone and spit on it. See how far you get. You’re not going to get very far. You’re going to be torn to pieces. Walk into Jerusalem, walk up to that wailing wall with a pick axe, start whacking away. See how far you’re going to get, somebody is going to put a bullet in your back. And everybody will say you deserved it. Walk into the Vatican with a hammer, start smashing a few statues. See how far you’re going to get. Not very far. But each and every day, ya know, people go into the most beautiful, most profoundly sacred cathedrals of this planet, the rainforests of the Amazonia, the redwood forests of California, the rainforests of Indonesia, and totally desecrate & destroy these cathedrals with bulldozers, chainsaws and how do we respond to that? Oh, we write a few letters and protest; we dress up in animal costumes with picket signs and jump up and down; but if the rainforests of Amazonia and redwoods of California, were as, or had as much value to us as a chunk of old meteorite in Mecca, a decrepit old wall in Jerusalem or a piece of old marble in the Vatican, we would literally rip those pieces limb from limb for the act of blasphemy that we’re committing but we won’t do that because nature is an abstraction, wilderness is an abstraction. It has no value in our anthropocentric world where the only thing we value is that which is created by humans.
- Talking about the environment in YouTube Video - Cpt. Paul Watson on the environment
- V Stands for Verity, Virtue, Valor, Validity and Veganism. … Veganism is real conservation in action. It goes beyond talking about climate change and diminishment of biodiversity and actually does something to address the problems.
- In a way, the Holocenic extinction event could also be called the "Holocenic hominid collective suicide event."
- The Beginning of the End for Life as We Know it on Planet Earth? There is a Biocentric Solution. Commentary by Paul Watson, Founder and President of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
- A virus kills its host and that is exactly what we are doing with our planet's life support system. We are killing our host the planet Earth.
- The Beginning of the End for Life as We Know it on Planet Earth? There is a Biocentric Solution. Commentary by Paul Watson, Founder and President of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society
- The activists of the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front are merely emulating the strategies and tactics of every other social and political movement that has ever existed but with one distinct difference – they have not killed anyone. Yet environmentalists and animal rights activists have been murdered, and the media is reluctant to portray the deaths as terrorism.
- "ELF and ALF - Terrorism Is as Terrorism Does", taken from Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Reflections on the Liberation of Animals (2004), p. 283
Quotes about Watson
edit- Driven by his profound love of animals, Paul Watson is perhaps the ultimate animal defender.....
- Steven Best and Jason Miller, The Pied Pipers of Pacifism: Lee Hall, Gary Francione, and the Betrayal of Animal Liberation (2009). p. 2
