Our Planet Climate and Geopolitics
A founder of Greenpeace faces extradition to Japan after being detained in Greenland on an international arrest warrant. Paul Watson – who used to captain a Greenpeace anti-whaling vessel but now leads his own anti-whaling organisation – is thought to be wanted on charges related to past attempts to interrupt Japanese whaling operations in Antarctica, some of them recorded in the Whale Wars reality TV series. Crew members say he was led off his current ship in handcuffs when it docked in Nuuk en route to the north Pacific via the northwest passage. The arrest warrant was enforced by local police with the blessing of the Danish government, which runs Greenland. Two questions: what could Captain Watson have done to warrant his arrest given he’s been firmly on the side of history, whales, the angels and the International Convention for the Prevention of Whaling for nearly 40 years? And why is Japan – which recently launched a new 9,300-tonne whaler called the Kangei Maru – still whaling at all?