DIVE LOG AUSTRALASIA FEB 2026

them to Interpol authorities in São Tomé and Principe.We had accomplished with international governments, specifically in this case what Australia and New Zealand had refused to do. We also worked in cooperation with Interpol, delivering evidence and documentation on not just the Thunder but five other poaching ships, the Perlon, Songhua, Yong Ding, Kunlun, Viking.It was the strangest situation because at the same time I was working with Interpol, I was subject to an Interpol red Notice issued by Japan for interfering with illegal Japanese whaling operations in the Southern Ocean. It was also strange that despite our success in shutting down all six illegal fishing operations, both the Australian and New Zealand governments condemned our actions as irresponsible and dangerous although no one was injured. When asked by a member of the New Zealand government as to why the Navy refused to board a toothfish poacher, an officer replied that he considered it too dangerous. When pressed further and told that Sea Shepherd had boarded, the officer replied that, “respectfully we’re not Sea Shepherd, we’re not pirates.”

opposing illegal Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean. Both extradition demands were unsuccessful. In addition, my interventions continue to be condemned by poachers as eco-terrorism while corporate poaching is ignored and unopposed by governments despite the existence of international laws like the United Nations World Charter for Nature and the High Seas Treaty Protecting Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdictions. In her book, Sarah Levy warns about the increasing difficulty for NGO interventions and the increasing ability for poachers and ecological crimes to avoid prosecution due to lack of state enforcement. Being an eco-pirate has been rewarding but it is becoming much more challenging for people like myself, due to governmental persecution and bureaucratic interference with regulations designed specifically to prevent non governmental involvement. If history has taught me anything, however, it is that pirates are needed to get things done. That is the reason I

In July 2015, the New York Times carried a front-page story on the pursuit of the Thunder where U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry praised Sea Shepherd’s actions. What this illustrates is the on-going conflict between non governmental actions and governmental inaction. In The Only Flag Worth Flying, Sarah Levy argues that this governmental inaction necessitates non-governmental intervention. Currently, my Foundation working with Sea Shepherd France are hunting down and seizing poaching nets in the waters of French Guyana with my ship the John Paul DeJoria. My ship the Bandero is in Melbourne completing preparations to voyage to the Southern Ocean to intervene with the ecologically destructive Norwegian and Chinese krill fishery. It is becoming increasingly more difficult for NGO’s, as governments focus on repressing non-governmental intervention while continuing to ignore exploitive unlawful activities. Although I have never been convicted of a single felony crime and I’ve never lost a civil suit, I have been arrested numerous times and held pending trials. 120 days in the Netherlands on an extradition demand by Norway in 1997 for opposing illegal Norwegian whaling and 149 days in Greenland pending an extradition demand by Japan for

designed and hoisted my own version of the Jolly Roger up the masts of my ship. If my enemies wanted to call me a pirate for my actions, I decided that I would indeed be a pirate and in fact I have become a real life pirate when U.S. Federal Court judge Alex Kozinski officially labelled me as a legally accredited pirate although I was never charged with piracy or any other crime by the U.S. Courts. However, I have no problem with the label and if my enemies choose to call me a pirate for protecting whales and defending life in the sea, well it’s a pirates’ life for me. I did get some satisfaction when the anti-environmentalist pro-Japanese whaling judge was later removed from the bench for sexually harassing interns and using the court computer to download offensive pornography. The Only Flag Worth Flying is a timely book in the recent wake of the High Seas Treaty providing justification for the need to enforce this treaty and other conservation laws in the waters where illegally plundering natural resources continues with impunity. The Only Flag Worth Flying - https://www.amazon.com/Only-Flag-Worth-Flying International/dp/1032864575

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DIVE LOG Australasia #416 - February’ 26

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