Campaigns & Projects

The Honu Hui Campaign was created to protect and promote one of the oldest and most fascinating creatures of our seas: the Caretta caretta sea turtle. Although it is the most common species in the Mediterranean, it is sadly now classified as endangered.

In 2025, several turtles were found dead due to the presence of ghost nets along the coastline — a silent but devastating threat that endangers countless marine species.

It is estimated that there are around 8,000 nesting females in the Mediterranean. In Italy, around 300 nests were monitored in 2023, a number confirmed again in 2024. For 2025, an increase in nest sightings is expected, thanks in part to the tireless efforts of organizations like the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, which is active on multiple fronts in marine conservation.

The first nests of 2025 were found in the warmer regions of Sicily and Campania, with Puglia, Lazio, and Tuscany following the same trend, confirming the nationwide relevance of this mission.

A Difficult Journey

Italian beaches, unfortunately, are heavily populated with beach resorts, creating significant obstacles for sea turtles. During the critical nesting phase, females face artificial barriers such as sunbeds, walkways, and fences.

And when hatchlings emerge, their first challenge is orientation: city lights, nightclub music, and urban noise disorient them, often leading them away from the sea — a journey many do not survive.

Dawn Watchers

Every morning before sunrise, volunteers from the Captain Paul Watson Foundation patrol the beaches in search of tracks left by turtles during the night. It’s a race against time: these fragile traces can quickly be erased by beach-cleaning tractors preparing the sand for the day ahead.

When a track is found, volunteers locate the exact nesting site, record its GPS coordinates, secure the area, and promptly notify the relevant authorities, such as the Coast Guard and marine biology centers.

Guardians of the Nests

From that moment, the nest is monitored daily. Volunteers ensure it remains safe from disturbances, vandalism, and natural threats. When exceptional events like storms or heavy rains put the nest at risk, experts from institutions such as the Anton Dohrn Zoological Station and the LIFE TURTLE NEST project intervene with conservation measures, if necessary.

Trained Volunteers, Hands-On Experience

Since 2023, the Italian volunteers of the Captain Paul Watson Foundation have been active mainly in Campania, Sicily, and Puglia. These are trained, passionate individuals who gain practical field experience and regularly participate in training courses, ensuring that every action is effective, respectful, and aligned with the latest scientific standards.

Dawn as an Ally

Monitoring activities take place in the early morning, when the beach is still quiet and untouched. It is in that fleeting moment — between darkness and light, between silence and the awakening of life — that the opportunity arises to protect a new generation of sea turtles.

We are embarking on a perilous odyssey that will take us where no other conservationists have ever gone before on a mission that has never before been undertaken. Our quest is to find, block and stop the largest and most mercilessly vicious monster in the Ocean.

It is a mission that will demand great courage because we will be confronting something much larger and more powerful than us, a murderous enemy devoid of compassion and empathy hell bent on destroying the most intelligent self-aware sentient beings in the sea. Our mission is to stop the Japanese whaling ship Kangei Maru, the world’s largest industrial whale killing machine. Our destination is the North Pacific and to get there we need to transit the Northwest passage on our ship the M/Y John Paul DeJoria.

No NGO-owned ship has ever undertaken a transit over the top of Canada. Along the way, this will be an opportunity to take samples to test for the presence of micro-plastics in the Arctic Ocean and to make observations of the impact of climate change on transits through the Arctic Ocean. Once we reach the Pacific, the task will be to locate and confront the Kangei Maru. Our 2nd ship, the M/Y Bandero, is on standby in Australia if the Japanese whalers return to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. With the John Paul DeJoria in the North and the Bandero in the South, we will be positioned to intercept the Japanese whalers wherever they will be operating.

Operation Kangei Maru Merch
T-Shirt
Women’s Top
Mug
Other Items

Kristján Loftsson, the wealthiest and most politically influential man in Iceland, has ignited a storm of controversy in the North Atlantic. ​

Most Icelanders are against killing whales. The Icelandic government is opposed to killing whales, but Kristjan Loftsson is used to getting what he wants, and what he wants is to kill endangered Fin whales. Commercial whaling was outlawed in 1986 when the Internation Whaling Commission (IWC) declared a global moratorium on whaling. Fin whales are universally protected under international conservation law.

Kristján Loftsson is confident that he will get what he wants. We are confident that we can prevent him from doing what he wants.

In two months, we will once again sail into the waters off Iceland to aggressively but non-violently intervene against the whale-killing machines. We’ve stopped Kristján Loftsson before – we cut his whaling fleet in half and saved hundreds of whales from his deadly harpoons. We now need to stop him for good.

There is a merciless storm threatening Fin whales in Icelandic waters, a storm of deadly explosive harpoons in the hands of a Cetacean serial killing fanatic. Our job is to calm these waters down and to make the North Atlantic a safe place for whales once again.

**UPDATE JUNE 2024**

It appears that no whales will be killed this summer despite the Icelandic government giving the green light to slaughter 99 endangered Fin whales. Whale killing boss Kristjan Loftsson says the permits came too late for him to launch his two ships and he understood that we would aggressively block his killing operations.

Awesome news.

But what to do with a ship and crew ready and eager for action?

We will be sending a land crew to the Faroe Islands to oppose the slaughter of pilot whales and dolphins.

But there is a new insidious threat to the whales – And we will pivot towards that and be back for Operation Ice Storm in 2025 if required.