Eco-warrior to speak at BUEI

Captain Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, is to talk about the group’s work and answer questions at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute (BUEI) on Monday.

Captain Watson joins first mate Peter Jay Brown for the screening of the film ‘Confessions of an Eco-terrorist’.

Directed and narrated by Mr. Brown, the documentary seeks to capture people’s imaginations as well as inform.

Mr. Brown has been a Sea Shepherd crewmember for three decades, filming the work of the marine conservation group worldwide.

In a recent interview with Planet Magazine, he said: “There’s a tremendous amount of information out there, and I think we have to focus people’s attention.

“No one cared about the ocean until a guy named Jacques Cousteau was out there. They didn’t just follow the ocean pictures.

“And no one cares about a lot of these issues unless someone like Paul Watson and other (Sea Shepherd Society) volunteers stand up and do something and sometimes give them solutions.”

His ‘direct’ footage includes Canadian hunters bludgeoning seals to death and Faroe Islanders killing a pod of Pilot whales in a bloody harbour.

The work of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is seen by many as controversial — with Captain Watson and the crew often referred to as ‘pirates’ — but the ‘terrorist’ of the film title is used in an ironic way.

“It’s a term that has been put on people, myself included, over the years,” said Mr. Brown.

“And it has generally been used by the people who are in fact the terrorists. The terrorists are out there killing the whales, killing the seals, killing the dolphins, and fishing illegally. We’re in fact the ultimate conservatives.”