Captain Paul Watson Foundation UK - Northern Ireland

01/09/2026

ICELAND DENIES ENTRY TO ENGINEER NEEDED TO SAIL THE BANDERO HOME. 🚨

As the legal fight to bring the Bandero home continues, another obstacle has emerged.

In an interview with Icelandic media outlet Vísir, Helgi Þorsteinsson Silva, one of the lawyers representing the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, explains that an engineer brought to Iceland to help crew the Bandero for her departure was denied entry into the country.

According to Helgi, the authorities refused the engineer entry on the basis that he did not have the required work permit, a decision the Foundation is now challenging.

“He is not coming here to work in Iceland. He is coming here to sail the ship away.”

The Foundation has appealed the decision to Iceland’s Immigration Appeals Board.

At the same time, a request to reconsider the seizure of the Bandero has been rejected, meaning that legal proceedings concerning the vessel are expected to continue before the District Court of West Iceland.

Despite the obstacles, Helgi remains optimistic that a way can be found to release the vessel sooner.

The situation raises a simple question:

If the goal is for the Bandero to leave Iceland, why make it harder to bring in the crew needed to sail her away?

The Bandero remains held in Akranes.

We remain determined to bring our ship home and return to the mission that was interrupted.



🎥 Source: Vísir, Iceland
Interview/report by Bjarki Sigurðsson
Published 28 August 2026

This video contains selected excerpts from the original Vísir report and does not include the full interview.

01/09/2026

On 29 August, 52.8% of Icelandic voters rejected reopening negotiations to join the European Union.

The consequences for whales are very real.

The EU strongly opposes commercial whaling and protects cetaceans from deliberate capture and killing. Accession negotiations would have forced Iceland to confront a cruel industry made possible by the country’s reservation to the international moratorium.

Instead, Iceland remains outside these protections—and its last fin-whaling company is still authorised to hunt up to 150 fin whales this year using explosive harpoons.

The door to EU negotiations may have closed for now. Our fight to end Icelandic whaling has not.

28/08/2026

28/08/2026

Today’s report in the Icelandic media contains far more than a legal update.

Hvalur hf., Iceland’s last remaining fin-whaling company, has requested a legal attachment against Bandero.

In doing so, Hvalur has effectively acknowledged that Bandero prevented Hvalur 9 from sailing where it intended.

Bandero was in Iceland to locate, follow and challenge Hvalur’s ships to ensure they could no longer hunt undisturbed and beyond public view.

But Hvalur’s claim raises a serious question.

According to Bandero’s crew, before 30 July the ship had made no visual or radar contact with Hvalur’s vessels.

So how did Hvalur know where Bandero was and that its ships needed to avoid it?

Bandero was required to report its position regularly to the Icelandic Coast Guard. CPWF has previously alleged that this information was passed to Hvalur.

Hvalur’s legal action does not prove that allegation. But it makes a transparent explanation essential.

The report may also help explain why Bandero was moved from Reykjavík to Akranes. No direct connection has been established, but the timing deserves scrutiny.

During the campaign, Bandero was closely tracked and instructed to maintain AIS transmission, while Hvalur’s vessels were permitted to hunt with their tracking systems switched off.

The Coast Guard and armed police then boarded Bandero, detained members of its crew and took control of the ship.

Now, an attachment requested by Hvalur is keeping it immobilised.

None of this proves corruption. But it raises a legitimate question about whose interests Icelandic authorities have prioritised.

The attachment is only an interim measure. It does not mean Hvalur has won its claim, proved financial loss or established that it is owed damages.

What it does show is that from Hvalur point of view Bandero affected the hunt and that Hvalur wanted it out of the way.

The scandal is not that Bandero disrupted Hvalur’s activities.

The scandal is that Hvalur was allowed to kill whales undisturbed in the first place.

17/08/2026

Iceland Sets Up the Bandero for Sabotage

The Icelandic Port Authority and the Icelandic Coast Guard have decided to move the Bandero from downtown Rekjavik to the fishing port of Arkanes, the place where most of the men employed by Kristján Loftsson’s whaling company live.

Arkanes is without a doubt the most hostile place to move the Bandero and it appears to be an open invitation to sabotage.

We’re not sure if this was another of Loftsson’s demands. Yesterday he demanded access to the official papers for the Bandero plus transcripts of the police interrogations of the Bandero crew.

There have been no official charges against the ship and crew but that did not stop the government from paying for the cost of deportation of all crew except the crew from Brazil, Trinidad and Australia due to the necessity of deportation only to a country of origin that has a direct flight from Iceland.

If they succeed in deporting the remaining crew and they do not allow a relief crew it will set up the Bandero to be an easy target for hostile whalers.

Moving the ship to Arkanes also present a real threat to the safety of the crew remaining onboard.

We will hold the Icelandic Port Authority, the Icelandic Coast Guard and the Police responsible for any theft or damage to property or assaults against our crew.

Are we concerned about their legal threats against us? Not really. We have documented the current state of the ship and we will hold the government responsible for any damages and port costs.

There is a very apparent lack of proportionality with the process. The crew of the Bandero did not injure anyone nor damage any property and all the ship’s papers are in compliance with international maritime law.

The AIS system was turned off but the crew reported their position on the hour as the Coast Guard requested despite the Coast Guard turning over the positions to Loftsson’s ships. The whaling vessels had permanently turned off their AIS systems for the last few years and have refused to be compliant.

Are the Coast Guard and the government deliberately setting up the Bandero for sabotage? Will the Coast Guard provide security? They should because it would be negligent for them not to do so by placing the ship and the crew in the crosshairs of belligerent angry whale killers.

Post by Paul Watson

17/08/2026

BREAKING: ICELANDIC WHALE MEAT WILL NO LONGER BE SOLD TO JAPAN

According to a report published today by Icelandic media outlet Vísir, Hvalur hf. plans to not selling fin-whale meat to Japan and instead use it to produce an iron supplement called Reyðarjárn.

Kristján Loftsson claims that widespread iron deficiency could justify countries "particularly in Africa" killing whales found off their own coasts.

But his argument immediately collapses under its own contradictions.

Loftsson himself acknowledges that the supplement may only be marketable in the Faroe Islands, Norway and Japan because most other countries prohibit trade in whale products.

In other words, this product cannot be freely distributed to the populations he claims it would help.

Iron is already available through crops, fortified staple foods and inexpensive supplements. Hunger is not caused by a shortage of whales. It is driven by poverty, conflict and inadequate access to nutritious food and healthcare.

What this announcement really reveals is that Hvalur no longer sees Japan as a viable market for its whale meat.

Japan has invested heavily in its own struggling whaling industry, including the new Kangei Maru factory ship. Importing additional Icelandic meat would increase supply, put pressure on prices and compete with Japanese whalers. While Japan’s motive has not been publicly confirmed, the supplement proposal looks less like humanitarian innovation and more like an attempt to invent a new outlet for an unwanted product.

Loftsson’s comments about Africa are particularly alarming.

This rhetoric is exactly why we must remain vigilant against any future attempt to pressure or incentivize coastal states into opening their waters to industrial whaling.

Africa is not a dumping ground for an unwanted product and West African waters must never become a new hunting ground for a dying industry.

This is not a plan to feed the world.

It is a search for new products, new markets and new excuses to continue killing whales.

Source: Vísir, 17 August 2026.

11/08/2026

Operation 86: forty years of fighting Icelandic whaling.

We’ve put together a full campaign update looking back at what happened in Iceland this summer, how our UK land team worked alongside the international crew of Bandero, and how this campaign fits into a fight that has been going on for four decades.

Alongside the article, we’ve published a new video bringing together some of the key moments from Operation 86.

As of 10 August, 41 fin whales have been killed this season.

As of now, our UK team is not on the ground in Iceland, but the evidence gathered there is still being worked on , and the pressure on Icelandic whaling does not stop when the team comes home.

Operation 86 is the latest chapter in a fight that began forty years ago. For our UK team, however, this campaign on the ground began in 2018.

05/08/2026

UPDATE FROM ICELAND 🇮🇸

All 21 crew members of the Bandero have now been allowed to leave the ship.

However, they are not free to leave Iceland.

Under the current conditions, they must remain within the Reykjavík metropolitan area and report regularly to the police while awaiting a decision from Icelandic immigration authorities.

They have also been informed that they may face deportation and a ban on returning to Iceland.

This is an important step forward, but the situation is far from over.

Our crew stood peacefully to defend endangered fin whales. Now they need the world’s support more than ever.

📩 Take action today. Visit the link in our bio to send a pre-written email to the Icelandic authorities and call for transparency, due process, and justice for the Bandero crew.

Every voice makes a difference. Stand with our crew. Stand for the ocean.