Pirate For the Sea

On Thursday March 5^th I attended the film Pirate for the Sea at the Durango Independent Film Festival. I really enjoyed the film as well as the whole film festival atmosphere. The film is a biography by Ron Colby about Paul Watson and his crew. Colby follows Watson and his crew on numerous expeditions. Paul Watson was originally the co founder of Greenpeace, however, he didn’t agree with all the corporate bullshit incorporated with Greenpeace and decided to set up his own cause the Sea Shepard. The Sea Shepard is an eco terrorist organization that stands to protect the oceans and sea life. It’s important to note that the Sea Shepard organization has not and will not harm another human being in their defense of sea life.

As a biography of Paul Watson and his organization the film was biased in many ways. They always showed Watson in a positive light, so it seemed he was always right. The subject of the film is a difficult one and my personal belief is that Watson is in the right, and I’m glad he is out in the world fighting for a cause. However, my whole view of Watson was created from this film, so therefore, I could possibly have a distorted view of Watson because I have never heard any other things about him. So I decided to do some research to learn more about the Sea Sheppard and Greenpeace.

I have heard numerous things about the organization Greenpeace, and I have never really liked their way of business. This film just added to my dislike of Greenpeace. It seems that Greenpeace doesn’t really do much to help. The organization just protests they don’t actually take action like the Sea Shepard; also Greenpeace uses a large amount of their money to get information out to people, rather than using it to take action and create change.

Its just a matter of opinion which organization is better, but my personal belief is that Paul Watson’s group is doing a hell of a lot more to help the cause than Greenpeace. Furthermore, if anyone is interested in the topic and wants to donate money towards the cause, I suggest they do some research to learn which one they believe is better and find out where there money is going.