The French Activist Defending the Oceans—and Direct Action

The Japanese whaling boat was minutes away from ramming into the Sea Shepherd vessel in the Antarctic Ocean. It was a windy day in December 2005 and the sea was violent. Lamya Essemlali, 26 at the time, was on her first mission. 

Essemlali, who is now the founder and president of Sea Shepherd France, had to ask herself a question: Was she prepared to die to protect a whale?

“I’d never even seen a whale before,” she tells me as she sips her tea at the Sea Shepherd France’s headquarters in Brittany. “But my answer was yes.”

Since its founding by Paul Watson in 1977, Sea Shepherd has used aggressive direct action to protect marine life and oceans. Over the years, Sea Shepherd has rammed ships, scuttled unmanned whaling vessels and thrown rotten butter aboard a boat to slick up the deck. The group has been a divisive force in the environmental movement, with their tactics eliciting both disdain and praise: Interpol issued an international arrest notice for Watson in 2012 while Time Magazine named him among the Top 20 environmental heroes of the 20th century. 

Over the past year, however, the group’s signature vigilante approach has come under question within the organization itself, with Sea Shepherd Global—the coordinating body for all independent, nationally-run Sea Shepherd groups—shifting its approach to work with government and research institutions. 

This change has not been welcomed by everyone. Last summer, conflict erupted at the heart of Sea Shepherd Global when Watson, who had been relegated by the organization to a mere figurehead, cut all ties with the group. Later that year, Watson launched his own organization in France called the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, which remains committed to the combative tactics that made Sea Shepherd famous. The branches in the U.K., Brazil, and France have followed Watson, leaving the Sea Shepherd Global umbrella. 

Amidst this fight, Essemlali has emerged as a key leader, resisting the global body’s shift towards mainstream tactics and remaining a staunch advocate of direct action. 

“I joined this organization because it wasn’t afraid to use direct action, to do what others were not willing to,” she said. “There are already too many organizations using softer, institutional approaches.”

This September, Essemlali said, she and Watson will face their opponents at Sea Shepherd Global in a court of law: The Judicial Court of Paris will decide who has the right to display the Sea Shepherd logo.

But for those involved, the trial is about more than who can lay a claim to the organization’s branding. 

At its core, the dispute—characterized by some as a power grab, by others as a family feud—is one at the heart of all social movements: What theory of change should guide action? And what rules should (or shouldn’t) be broken? 

Since its founding, Sea Shepherd has been committed to using direct action to enforce international law at sea by preventing illegal actors from unsustainably exploiting marine life. Direct action can involve anything from strikes to physical blockades rather than negotiating to achieve one’s demands. 

The organization was formed in 1977 after Watson was kicked out of Greenpeace due to disagreements over his tactics. From the start, Sea Shepherd’s goal was to go where no enforcement agency or NGO would—the high seas. 

In its early years, the organization conducted one to two missions annually, mainly focussed on stopping illegal seal hunting and whaling. The group would use anything at their disposal—from vessels, to their own bodies—to stop actors they believed were conducting illegal activities at sea. 

It is precisely Sea Shepherd’s anti-institutional approach that drew Essemlali to the organization. The child of Moroccan immigrants in a poor suburb of Paris, Essemlali was taught from a young age to be skeptical of institutions.

“It was understood that if you were black or Arab, no one had your back,” she said. “You had to be tough and defend yourself.”

Despite growing up in what she calls a “concrete barricade,” Essemlali was always passionate about the oceans, which she grew to love during summer visits to see her family on the coast of Morocco. Essemlali started her career volunteering for environmental NGOs, like World Wildlife Fund, but felt frustrated that the call to arms was often to sign petitions. When a friend brought her along to see Watson speak during a trip to Paris in 2005, she was immediately hooked. “I went up to him and said: When can I start?”

In 2006, Essemlali launched the French branch of Sea Shepherd, with the goal of protecting marine life in France’s waters, a nation which is second only to the U.S. in national maritime space. Since its founding, Sea Shepherd France has used direct action, such as intercepting illegal turtle poachers in Mayotte.

But since Essemlali joined, the umbrella organization’s tactics have changed. 

As Sea Shepherd has gained more funding and volunteers, the organization has transformed from a vigilante group to a partner of government authorities. In Peru, Gabon and Liberia, for instance, Sea Shepherd works with the national coast guards, where they are authorized to undertake many of the same responsibilities as state actors, from inspecting cargo hold to monitoring what marine life was being fished.  

Initially, collaborating with governments was not seen as conflicting with the group’s direct action tactics: Watson himself launched a public-private partnership with the government in the Galapagos. Essemlali has been in touch with the French Minister of the Sea. 

But as national Sea Shepherd groups partner with government agencies which some believe are linked to irresponsible fishing or whaling practices, some members worry that the group is losing its legitimacy, serving as a greenwashing tool for government institutions. 

“There’s a difference with working with [governments] versus for governments,” said Essemlali. 

Sea Shepherd Global said they could not comment on this story due to their ongoing litigation with Sea Shepherd France. 

Over the years, these disputes have split the group into two camps: those who want to work with mainstream actors and those defending the group’s independence and commitment to direct action. 

“What has allowed us to break the status quo is our willingness to act without needing the approval of an authority figure,” said Essemlali. “That’s the defining mark of Sea Shepherd.”

But beyond debates about Sea Shepherd’s identity, many people working within the ocean conservation space are concerned with a more practical question: which approach is most likely to protect our oceans? 

Many experts that have studied Sea Shepherd agree that the group’s past vigilante tactics were effective at bringing attention to their cause. From Sea Shepherd’s campaigns to its reality television show Whale Wars, which aired from 2008 to 2015 on Animal Planet, the group gave people a front row seat to maritime crime.

“Even for someone like me, who knows a lot about the ocean, I wasn’t aware about a lot of the issues Sea Shepherd was bringing attention to,” said Claude Berube, a maritime historian and Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve who wrote a report about the group in 2021. “It was quite eye-opening.”

The organization hasn’t just grabbed media attention: It’s also reduced marine crimes. During their antiwhaling campaign, for instance, the presence of Sea Shepherd boats between 2010 and 2011 resulted in the Japanese whalers only catching 19.1% of their self-appointed quota of fin and minke whales. 

“There is a causal impact between what Sea Shepherd did and Japan’s dropping whale numbers,” said Teale Phelps Bondaroff, an independent academic who studies the political evolution of Sea Shepherd.

Many experts that have studied Sea Shepherd agree that the group’s past vigilante tactics were effective at bringing attention to their cause. From Sea Shepherd’s campaigns to its reality television show Whale Wars, which aired from 2008 to 2015 on Animal Planet, the group gave people a front row seat to maritime crime.

“Even for someone like me, who knows a lot about the ocean, I wasn’t aware about a lot of the issues Sea Shepherd was bringing attention to,” said Claude Berube, a maritime historian and Commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve who wrote a report about the group in 2021. “It was quite eye-opening.”

The organization hasn’t just grabbed media attention: It’s also reduced marine crimes. During their antiwhaling campaign, for instance, the presence of Sea Shepherd boats between 2010 and 2011 resulted in the Japanese whalers only catching 19.1% of their self-appointed quota of fin and minke whales. 

“There is a causal impact between what Sea Shepherd did and Japan’s dropping whale numbers,” said Teale Phelps Bondaroff, an independent academic who studies the political evolution of Sea Shepherd.

Berube, however, recognizes that collaborating with governments could be compromising, particularly if states have a vested interest in supporting industrial fishing. Becoming too dependent on governments could also limit the group’s ability to embark on more aggressive tactics if those are seen as in conflict with state interest. 

“This is classic inside/outsider politics,” said Phelps Bondaroff. “Once you open the doors for some tactics and strategies, you close others.”

Although researchers have studied the benefits and drawbacks of both strategies, it has been hard to compare the two. Sea Shepherd’s rift presents a rare case study and forum for debate. 

“Now that we have this splitting of the organization, we will be able to have more data to go on to say which route is best,” said Berube. “Only in the longer term will we know which strategy works best.”

The debate over direct action is taking place in a context of increasing urgency, where the stakes to protect our planet and our oceans are getting higher every day. 

We are at a critical moment for averting planetary catastrophe. Already, climate change is wreaking havoc on the planet, leading to more extreme and unpredictable weather patterns and events. Biodiversity is declining faster than at any other point in human history, with an average decline of 69% in species populations since 1970. Climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050. 

The seas are at great risk. Our oceans today are the most acidic they have been in two million years. This month, water temperatures off the coast of Florida hit 98°F—“hot-tub hot,” one reporter said. At the same time, oxygen-depleted dead zones are expanding, suffocating marine life. Marine vertebrate populations dropped by 52% between 1970 and 2010. 

Yet scientists say the institutions responsible for protecting our planet and its oceans—from national governments to international bodies like the United Nations—are not doing enough to avert irreversible ecological damage. 

Within this context, many people have become disillusioned and distrustful of mainstream institutions. The number of people suffering from eco-anxiety is rising, with 45% of young people saying it affects their daily mental health. As a result, many are turning to direct action. From Extinction Rebellion occupying central London to controversial underground networks illegally reintroducing rare species into their environment, direct action movements are on the rise.  

“People want to see that they are having an impact in the world,” said Phelps Bondaroff. “If you sign a letter, you don’t see it. But if you protect a forest, you can look at the trees and say: ‘I saved that.’”

This is precisely what draws people to Sea Shepherd. 

“It was the direct action that made me join,” said Damien Chamillon, a captain for Sea Shepherd France. “I’m not going to travel the whole world to hold a sign that says ‘save the whales’.”

Elodie Pouet, a volunteer for Sea Shepherd France, feels similarly. “I’m very proud that Sea Shepherd took a stance and protected Watson and direct action,” she said. “When I look at myself in the mirror at night, I tell myself I’m part of a movement that is defending something real. We cannot lose that.”

To Essemlali, this sentiment is worth protecting. “People need to know that their actions have an impact.”

Over the years, this feeling has kept her going. Although it’s been almost two decades since Essemlali’s first mission on the Antarctic Ocean, she remembers the day clearly. 

As the Japanese whaling boat approached the Sea Shepherd vessel, she recalls feeling terrified but content with the decision she had made. 

“I remember thinking how heartbroken I’d be if something happened and I never saw my family again,” she said. “But then I thought: I’m glad I’m here.”