Captain Peter James Bethune (born 4 April 1965) is a New Zealand ship's captain with 500 ton master licence, published author, producer of The Operatives TV show, and public speaker. He is the founder of Earthrace Conservation. He works assisting countries in Asia, Central America and Africa with fisheries enforcement and anti-poaching. He is the holder of the world record for circumnavigating the globe in his powerboat Earthrace, a wavepiercing trimaran powered with biofuels. Earthrace was renamed the Ady Gil in 2009 and Bethune sailed it in Antarctica for Sea Shepherd Conservation Society[1] to disrupt Japanese whaling activities. The vessel was subsequently rammed by the Shonan Maru 2, a Japanese whaling vessel. Bethune subsequently boarded the Shonan Maru 2, presented the captain with an invoice for the Ady Gil and attempted to arrest him. Bethune was detained, taken back to Japan and charged with a number of offences related to his trespassing and assault. He received a suspended sentence. In 2012, Bethune started Earthrace Conservation, which works on conservation and environmental campaigns. His team consists of former military personnel, and they are involved in fisheries enforcement, anti-poaching, and stopping wildlife smuggling. Many of the missions have been filmed and made into the TV series The Operatives, which has now aired in around 90 countries. More recently Bethune's work has involved training government teams on coastal and offshore surveillance, fisheries enforcement, and maritime security. On 22 November 2017, Bethune was attacked by two men in the Brazilian city of Santander. Bethune at the time had been researching the illegal pet trade of Amazonian wildlife. He said a man with a knife initially lunged at him, and there ensued a scuffle, with Bethune struggling to hold onto the man's knife arm. A second man approached from the rear and put his arm around Bethune's neck, forcing him to fall to the ground. Bethune was stabbed in the chest. He continued to struggle, and the assailants eventually ran off. Bethune returned to New Zealand, and a few days later gave a TEDx talk where he recounted the horrifying ordeal. In 2019 Bethune's non-profit Earthrace Conservation purchased the former US Navy and USCG ship Modoc, which his team converted into a conservation support vessel. The vessel has a Zodiac Milpro FC470, a Willard 7.4m RIB, a 7m barge, and a Schiebel S100 Camcopter UAV. The ship was taken to Costa Rica in 2020 where she supports the Government Environmental Agency SINAC in various campaigns protecting Costa Rica's national parks. In January 2021, while on patrol in Piedras Blancas National Park in Costa Rica, Bethune was bitten by a deadly Fer-de-lance snake. He was taken to Golfito Hospital and admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. He was released from hospital 2 weeks later, but with some ongoing health issues related to the snake bite and subsequent treatment. In March 2022 while at anchor in the port town of Buenaventura in Colombia, his team was attacked by an estimated 15 pirates that attempted to board their ship. His team fired a series of warning shots into the water from an assault rifle, and the pirates abandoned their assault and left.
Personal life and early career Bethune grew up in Hamilton West, New Zealand as one of five children. He completed a Master of Business Administration at the Macquarie Graduate School of Management, Bachelor of Science at the University of Waikato, and a Bachelor of Engineering at the University of Auckland. He has two daughters with his wife, Sharyn, his high school sweetheart, who divorced him in 2009. He began his career as an oil exploration engineer for Schlumberger Wireline Services and worked in the North Sea and Libya. In 1997, he co-founded CamSensor Technologies. The company manufactures automated camera systems for controlling robots used in complex tasks such as cutting up and grading meat carcasses. He later moved to Sydney to establish a subsidiary there. His entry into conservation started when he wrote a 20,000-word paper titled "Alternative Fuels for Road Transport" while pursuing his Master of Business Administration degree from Macquarie University in 2004 He concluded that hydrogen as a fuel was a dead-end, but that biofuels such as biodiesel and ethanol could become mainstream in use. He also predicted the battery electric vehicle could eventually replace the combustion engine in terms of road transport. For leisure, Bethune enjoys camping, scuba, freediving, kayaking, and CrossFit. He told a reporter for The New Zealand Herald: "I've come from a very unusual background to be a conservationist."
Captain of Earthrace
Based on his research at Macquarie Graduate School of Management, Bethune set out to prove that hydrocarbon fuels could be replaced by sustainable bio-fuels. He had Earthrace designed by LOMOcean Design and built in order to break the world record for a circumnavigation of the globe by a powerboat in hopes that it would call attention to the viability of biodiesel as an alternative fuel. He mortgaged his New Zealand home and financed the building in the hopes of recouping the expenses from sponsorship. He declined a $4 million sponsorship from a company that would have required them to use regular diesel.
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