Law-Enforcing Vigilantes in the Media Era?: An Investigation of Sea Shepherd's Anti-Whaling Campaign
Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: Japan’s research whaling in the Antarctic Ocean has been conducted since 1987, when the moratorium on commercial whaling was put into effect. However, it has recently been placed in jeopardy because of a series of intense protests by the environmental organization “Sea Shepherd”. Sea Shepherd is a marine wildlife conservation organization founded by the maverick environmental activist Paul Watson, a member of Greenpeace until 1977. Whereas Greenpeace has an element of “protest business” that exploits environmental issues as a means of raising funds from sympathetic donors, Sea Shepherd is more like a “vigilante group” or a “self-appointed policing organization” that takes aspects of international laws into its own hands. This article summarizes the history of Watson and Sea Shepherd to examine Sea Shepherd’s (1) organizational goals and campaign agendas, (2) financial status, and (3) governing structure, in comparison with Greenpeace. The article also discusses Sea Shepherd’s campaign methods, focusing on its
DOI: 10.15021/00002450
Authors: Motohiro Kawashima, 基弘 河島, モトヒロ カワシマ
Language: English
Subfield: Nature and Landscape Conservation
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2166330496