Greenpeace refused to cooperate with Sea Shepherd

The action, which happened on Thursday 17 June, saw divers from the Sea Shepherd anti-poaching group – which usually takes on whalers – cut open a floating cage being towed by a Maltese vessel owned by the Fish And Fish company.

The incident has now led to a concerted action by tuna farmers to tow their cages back to shore in groups under an escort from the Armed Forces of Malta.

Greenpeace have been reported to have refused to involve itself in the Sea Shepherd action last Thursday, even though it is involved in similar anti-poaching activities. The tuna fishing season was closed by the European Commission early on 14 June, after all quotas for tuna farming were rapidly reached.

“We encountered the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise heading Southwest towards the coordinates of the cage we liberated yesterday. We changed course to intercept them with the intention of communicating with them, but they turned around and fled from us at full speed. We followed and we were able to catch up with them around 1630 Hours,” said Captain Paul Watson, the president of the Sea Shepherd, in his blog.

“The Arctic Sunrise radioed us and asked what our intentions were and we said we were simply doing a photo-op, and by the way how about joining us to come save the fish. ‘Arctic Sunrise, this is the Steve Irwin. We’ve located a cage with about 800 illegal fish in it and this will be a wonderful opportunity for our two organizations to work together’, said Steve Irwin First Officer Locky MacLean.

“After a moment’s hesitation, the captain of the Arctic Sunrise Joel Stewart radioed back and simply said, ‘That’s a negative’…

“It was evident that the Arctic Sunrise did not want an aerial shot of our two ships together side-by-side so they began to go in circles to prevent it,” Watson said.

Watson himself is a founding member of Greenpeace. Watson argued for a strategy of direct action that conflicted with the Greenpeace interpretation of nonviolence, and was ousted from the board in 1977, and subsequently left the organisation. That same year, he formed Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

“I have to say that when I looked over at the Arctic Sunrise with the dolphins swimming before both our bows, I felt a twinge of pride as a founding father of Greenpeace. I know that [Greenpeace founder] Robert Hunter would have loved to have seen this and I know what he would have said if he did… Together Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd could rock the oceans; together we could be a stronger force to be reckoned with.”

Greenpeace says its policy of nonviolent action makes it impossible to cooperate with Sea Shepherd: "Paul Watson has made many public requests for Greenpeace to reveal the location of the whaling fleet or otherwise cooperate with Sea Shepherd in the Southern Ocean when the ships of both organizations have been there simultaneously. We passionately want to stop whaling, and will do so peacefully. That's why we won't help Sea Shepherd. Greenpeace is committed to non-violence and we'll never, ever, change that; not for anything."