PAUL WATSON Eco-Pirate

ACTIVISM ON THE EDGE: PAUL WATSON AND SEA SHEPHERD IN NEW MOVIE.

In the audio, you get the latest from famous environmentalist, Paul Watson, Founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. I recorded his speech after a new film, and the Q and A, along with Trish Dolman, the Director. It is an important update on Watson's campaigns with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

You may believe in Ghandi; Watson says non-violence can never stop pirates of the sea. He saved seals, dolphins, turtles, sharks, and whales - right from his early days in Greenpeace, to Sea Shepherd's latest campaign in the Antarctic, risking their lives to stop Japanese whaling. Now Paul has become a policeman for small countries plundered by foreign fishing fleets. He's headed to Libya.

I recorded Watson's speech following the Premiere of the new full-length bio film "Eco-Pirate: The Paul Watson Story." Don't miss the lively questions from the enthusiastic audience. It was shown to a packed house at the Projecting Change 2011 film festival.

Watch the trailer here.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTStVKT6d_k

The movie comes out in theaters in July. The Producer is now off doing another series for Animal Planet, "Animal Hoarders".

This from the film's web site:

"Eco-Pirate: The Story of Paul Watson is a feature-length documentary about a man on a mission to save the planet and its oceans. Part Captain Nemo, part Grizzly Man, the film will follow Watson in the act as he repeatedly flouts the law, so that he may apprehend what he sees as the more serious law-breakers – the illegal poachers of the world. From the genesis of Greenpeace to the sinking of a pirate whaling ship off Portugal, from clashes with fisherman in the Galapagos to Watson’s recent headline-grabbing battles with the Japanese whaling fleet in Antarctica, this documentary chronicles the extraordinary life one of the most controversial figures in the environmental movement – the heroics, the ego, the urgency – of the world’s original eco pirate."
 http://www.screensiren.ca/2011/05/eco-pirate-the-story-of-paul-watson-2/

What would you do to save the animals and the ecosphere? How far would you go?

Paul Watson says humans are a violent and dangerous species. This environmentalist, an early founder of Greenpeace in Vancouver, went to the edge of violence to save seals, dolphins, and especially the whales from human slaughter.

I've just seen the Premiere of a new film biography, "Eco-Pirate: The Story of Paul Watson". We see young Paul on a dying whale; standing pat in front of an advancing ice-breaker; ramming a rogue whaling ship; and taking on the Japanese whaling fleet, in harsh Antarctic waters. Writer and director Trish Dolman spent years on the ships of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. She includes the harshest critics, making this the definitive biography of one of Earth's greatest environmentalists.

This was hands-down the best green documentary I've seen this year. The Antarctic footage and ship-board life alone was stunning. Writer Dolman did not create a fan film. She went to Watson's critics, and there are many, from the Japanese Ambasador, through Canadian officials, even two wives and a daughter left behind on shore. The story of early Greenpeace is woven in, with a careful look at non-violence versus direct action. There is love and danger, when ships collide on the open seas, and you are there, as part of the crew.

In the end, despite criticism and doubts, admiration for Paul Watson cannot be denied. Certainly the living marine mammals he saved would vote for his life of activism - which incidentally, never cost a human life.