How Captain Paul Watson used chilli to make Iceland's whale hunt harder to hide

the mission

The Captain Paul Watson Foundation and Paul Watson Foundation UK wanted to stop Icelandic whaling by making it harder to defend, fund, ship, insure, promote, or quietly ignore.

So they did not run one petition and hope for the best. They built a pressure network.

• Hit the whaler: isolate Kristján Loftsson and Hvalur hf.
• Hit the enablers: pressure banks, insurers, ports, logistics companies, and fuel suppliers.
• Hit the political system: push Icelandic ministries, embassies, EU officials, the IWC, ESA, and foreign governments.
• Hit the reputation layer: make Iceland's tourism brands, hotels, travel platforms, and media answer for whaling.
• Protect the crew: mobilize public pressure when the Bandero and its crew came under state scrutiny.

The goal was simple. If Kristján Loftsson and Hvalur hf. wanted to keep hunting whales, every part of the system helping them do that should feel the heat.

how Captain Paul Watson Foundation
used chilli

The Captain Paul Watson Foundation and Paul Watson Foundation UK used chilli to run multiple waves of actions, all tied to the same fight. This created a momentum powered by a strong group of highly engaged supporters.

• 47K+ actions taken
• 5K supporters
• 163 CTAs built
• 8+ pressure fronts opened

Supporters were not pushed into one generic action. They were asked to email Iceland's Prime Minister, ministries, embassies, the IWC, ESA, EU leaders, EIB-linked actors, Arion Bank, insurers, travel platforms, hotels, media outlets, ports, logistics companies, and companies tied to the whaling supply chain.
They also called hotels, reviewed public-facing businesses, commented on tourism channels, backed the Bandero crew, and pushed media outlets to show the footage.

That is where chilli made the difference. When one tactic slowed down, the campaign pivoted to another target, and focused a new pressure point.

the impact

Across the 2026 whaling season, chilli helped turn Operation 86 into a multi-front pressure campaign, connecting digital actions with IRL operations at sea and monitoring on land.

The Captain Paul Watson Foundation said the Bandero's presence forced Kristján Loftsson's fleet to repeatedly abandon hunting grounds and relocate to avoid detection. The foundation also reported that the 2026 catch was lower than comparable past seasons at the same stage, with around 32 fin whales killed, compared with 62 in 2018 and 55 in 2022.

• The Bandero was deployed to Iceland to document and oppose Hvalur hf.'s commercial fin whale hunt.
• The Captain Paul Watson Foundation reported that the Bandero increased operational pressure on Hvalur's fleet by making the hunt harder to carry out unnoticed.
• MAST findings confirmed violations during Hvalur's 2026 whaling operations, according to Captain Paul Watson Foundation.
• Oceanographic reported the brutality of the renewed hunt, including one fin whale shot four times that took around 31 minutes to die.
• Iceland's government announced a review of whaling laws, with the goal of eventually ending whaling.

The pressure spread far beyond the whaling ships. With chilli, the Captain Paul Watson Foundation turned Icelandic whaling into a fight that reached the individuals, companies, and institutions keeping it alive: politicians, banks, insurers, ports, tourism brands, regulators, media, and the public.

That is the point. On chilli, supporters were able to engage with different tactics and see the impact they generated through the campaign updates. It kept the supporters motivated and determined to take more actions to protect the whales.