4- Sunday, Aprit 4, 1993 - North Shore News

jco-warrior Watson roars back into the fray

‘STRICTLY PERSONAL.

MY OLD shipmate Paul

. Watson continues to: make

waves, infuriating his many
. nor-fans, and delighting his
Supporters worldwide: °

‘Watson, you’ may recall, is the
/ Canadian eco-activist who packed
his bags a few years back and left
his home and native land i in
'~ disgusts! (.

He was fed up. with being

‘harassed by government agencies
every time he turned around.

The Mounties, he said, had :

; passed along false reports about
“his criminal record to American
border guards to thwart his...
“Movements. es

His mail was constantly being
intercepted. ‘His lines were tapped.
5 He was being charged | wildly
excessive pilotage fees. He was
‘generally being smothered in red
tape, hobbled by burcaucrats and
spat upon by the local press.

1 still can't seem'to get any.”

: books or- videos, through to him at

‘his current address. without the

ackage being torn apart by
customs officials.,

In the latest incident, an...

a tographed copy of a recent.
book of mine went missing.

‘A lot of people’ view Paul as a.
‘terrorist’’ because he goes

around r; mming ‘and scuttling -
haling and drifinet.ships. as well

He holds’ strong, extreme views
lat are ‘defi nitely not hared | by.

en and unemployed seal.

hunters loathe him with a pas ion} :

Civs an understate-

ment to say that Watson is hated
almost as much by some people in
the environment movement itself,
ones whose toes he has tromped
all over in the last 20 years.

From the conversations } have,

‘} would say that most en-

vironmentalists at least secretly

‘ admire him. Some, certainly,

revere him. :

He commands a lot of respect,
even if his style sets so many other
people’s tecth on edge. {f he ever
does martyr himself, a cult will be
waiting, if, indeed, it hasn't
formed already.

Since leaving Vancouver in a

‘huff, Watson has set-up shop in
Los Angeles. There, he hangs out
' with the stars.

He has become an established
media personality. He teaches a
course at UCLA, Students actual-
‘ly write down what he says. He
has just finished a how-to book
‘on being an eco-warrior.

And to round it all out, he lives
on a sailboat donated by a sup-
porter, and his fiancee is indeed a
former Playboy model.

She'd had Watson's framed pic-
ture hanging on the wall over fer
bed since she was a bid (back in
his seal-saving days), and she still
‘can’t believe her luck, waking up
every. morning with her lifelong
hero in her arms.

For years now, he has been par-

tially living off the sale and re-
sale of. the movie rights to his
“story.

‘Some of the very top producers:

in Hollywood, like ‘Tony Bill,
have held the property fora time,
only to not quite make it to pro-’
duction because of ... something.
The problem for the script-
_ writers is that, when they get,
down to trying to but the story
“together, they can’t escape the,
fact that Watson advocates the
‘destruction of property, if neces-:
_Sary, in defence of the Earth.
This isn’t a subject the liberal
“types in Hollywood want to go
"hear with a 0-foot sound mike. ~
‘Watson himself draws a sharp
line between the kind of stuff he

N OG
‘HONEST HARD WORK

does and real terrorism, as prac-
tised by the IRA, Shining Path,
scores of nationalists, religious
fundamentalists, or the Serbian
Army.

He isn’t out there blowing off
bombs in the middle of shopping
malls, or parking lots under sky-
scrapers, or mass-raping and
murdering anyone. He's never in-
jured a soul.

His targets are highly selective.
They are the property of people
he thinks are destroying the eco-
system, with special emphasis on
pirate or quasi-legal plunderers of
the sea.

_ Like it or not, that’ s the phi-
losophy he's laying out. He says

that future gencrations will vin-
dicate his admittedly radical
. Views, and, in the mei intime, if he

doesn’t act, there won't be much

‘left to debate about.

We should all be doing the
same thing he’s doing, he says.
Watson hasn’t slowed down at

‘Ragfinder's
North: Mancouver ;

N Vanco ver; 186 Maine Drive, 986-1906

Mon.-Sat.

9 0. 30pm, Sun., pense

all. He reminds me of a “sea.
wolf’ kind of character, but you
have to remember he read all the
Jack London books too. We all
want to be a sea-wolf, don’t we?

Watson just gets closer to if
than most,

Now ii never fails when you get
down to the specific details of
becoming involved in any conser-
vation campaign, there are as
many points of view as there are
players, and a lot of them are
paid by the bad guys'to lic.

Watson has butted his way up
to the table in many an interna-
tional eco-game, and what he .
docs now overshadows the work
of alot of other, less high-profile
groups and individuals.

His latest ‘kamikaze’? mission
is to plunge into Norwegian
waters, where the Norwegian
Navy, lacking any anti-Soviet
work to do, is wailing, vowing to
grab him the moment he appears.

. Back in L.A., Watson is rub-

bing shoulders with the current
stars ata celebrity fundraiser, and
urges Norway to declare war on
him, knowing he will become (one
more time) a lightning rod for in- |
ternational media attention.

In this case, it will focus on
Norway's disastrous decision to
restart its whaling industry.

This is Norway, no less, the
proud, supposedly ecologically hip |
country whose prime minister is
none other than Gro Harlem :
Brundtland, former. head of the
World Commission on Environ-
ment and Development, whose:
report, ‘Gur Common Future,’*
is the Bible of the whole sus- |."
tainable development movement...’

Suddenly, Ms. Brundtland is |
going to go [rom being the ;
Mother Teresa of the environment /
to the Clifford Olsen of whaling.'

if the Norwegians don’t kill him
first, Watson’s going to have fun :
Watch for it, :