[Trevor]

The Strategy of Recognizing Our Enemies


We concentrate our efforts on recognizing who are our legitimate enemies are. They fall exclusively into category number one. It is this category of enemies that we direct our energies and attention towards. Category number two is a distraction and can be dealt with by responding only when attacked, and category number three is not worth doing anything about, and can be strategically ignored, unless incorporated into a particular strategy. Thus we can target our real enemies offensively like the pirate whalers, outlaw sealers, and illegal fishing operations and deal with attacks by our "allies" defensively.

The miracle has been that after twenty-nine years, I am still alive, and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has survived. This despite hundreds of confrontations, despite having been shot at, our ships sabotaged, our vessels rammed, our lives threatened, despite having been depth-charged, beaten by sealers, tear-gassed, and pursued by numerous national navies.

It is difficult to get agitated about slander and libelous remarks on the internet after weathering real-life dramatic show-downs on the high seas. We have survived, and we have left plenty of angry ocean-pillagers in our wake.

When our enemies called us pirates, we responded by designing our own Jolly Roger. I personally thought the accusation was complimentary. Back in the 17th Century, it was not the British and Spanish navies that stopped the buccaneers in the Caribbean. That task was achieved by Henry Morgan – a pirate. Morgan did not become a criminal until he became Governor of Jamaica. In other words if you want to stop piracy, you need pirates to do it, and Sea Shepherd is an organization of good pirates in pursuit of bad pirates.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is an untouchable organization. We can't be bribed and we can't be distracted by political, cultural, philosophical, or social agendas. We say what has to be said. We report what we see. We intervene against illegal activities as defined by international law. And never throughout our 25 years of high seas activism, have we ever caused an injury or a death to any human being.

We are proud of our record, and we are proud of our achievements, and this pride has given us a confidence to act where and when we must, to stop the ruthless illegal destruction of life and habitats throughout the world's oceans.

Our real enemies are out there - on the water, and we will continue to challenge them in seas both calm and rough, on ice floes and in tropical doldrums. We will challenge them in the courts and in the marketplace, and we will target the one thing they truly value - their ill-gotten profits. For when all is said and done, being hated and reviled is not so bad. False accusations, vicious rumors, fabricated facts, distorted lies, character assassination, and deception are all trivialities and can be ignored.

The only thing that matters, that truly matters, is that we keep our focus on stopping the killers and the destroyers. What matters are the lives we save and the species and eco-systems we protect.

Our obligation and responsibility is to the future. What will this world be like in ten years, a hundred years, a thousand years, even a million years from now unless we act.

A conservationist can afford to be attacked and hated. What we cannot afford to do is fail to act. We must never allow fear of slander, fear of others to dissuade us from doing what must be done. And what must be done is anything that contributes to righting the wrongs of the darker side of humanities crimes against nature.

500 years from now, no one will remember the trivialities of today. No one will care who said what about who. No one will even remember most individual actions or campaigns. People will remember that whales once lived, but are no more. They will remember that there were once rain-forests. Or perhaps there will be rainforests and they will remember the name of Randy Hayes. Or perhaps there will still be Mountain gorillas and they will remember Dian Fossey. And hopefully, there will still be whales in the oceans because of our direct-action conservation efforts.

People reviled today for their activism will be tomorrow's angels, and people respected today for their wealth and power will be tomorrow's demons. History will absolve us and condemn them. One thing can be said with absolute certainty. Saving lives, protecting species and habitats is good. Killing and destroying species and habitats is bad. There is nothing confusing about this agenda. You are either a protector of the Earth, or a destructive parasite on the Earth.

There is nothing that a parasitical Earth exploiting killer has to say, or can say that can deter a person dedicated to protecting life, our eco-systems and our planet. All we need to remember is that when people are calling us names and hurtling threats at us, it is simply an indication that we might actually be doing something worthwhile.