By Mick Le Moignan
One of many characteristics Jersey and Australia have in common is being surrounded by sea. Our insularity lays us open to uninformed criticism by people with less definite borders, but for Jersey people and Australians, this marine encirclement is a source of quiet satisfaction.
The ocean gives us security, nourishment, pleasure, entertainment, the challenge of sometimes dangerous adventures and a deep sense of contentment with our place in the world. We know where we stand – and when it is time to float, swim or man the lifeboats. Until recently, it has been harder for us to damage or despoil the sea than the land.
Sadly, the relentless march of what we used to call industrial progress has placed even the deepest oceans at the mercy of greedy, thoughtless humans. A world government or United Nations with real power and influence would research and assess the problems and work out how to deal with them. Regrettably, the curse of nationalism that divides us and offers us excuses for inaction makes the seas as hard to protect as the air we breathe and the climate and environment we inhabit.
We leave it to a few courageous and outstanding individuals to stand up and draw our attention to what we must do to ensure that our children, grandchildren and succeeding generations will be able to enjoy something like our own privileged lifestyles.
Fortunately, at least two celebrated individuals are prepared to put their reputations and their fortunes on the line to sound the warning that we need to hear.
One is the Australian billionaire philanthropist Dr Andrew Forrest, founder and principal shareholder in Fortescue Metals Group. “Twiggy” Forrest (Australian nicknames are endearingly obvious) made his fortune from finding iron ore in tenements that BHP and Rio Tinto had discarded. Then, rather than indulging himself in the style of Trump’s billionaire acolytes, he took a PhD in Marine Science at the University of Western Australia and gave much of his fortune to the Minderoo Foundation, to support environmental and humanitarian causes. Forrest might be seen as the moral and ethical opposite of Elon Musk, a man for whom empathy with fellow human beings is fundamental.
The other man needs no introduction. Aged 99, he is the UK’s and maybe the world’s best-loved TV presenter, Sir David Attenborough, probably the wisest and most widely respected surviving member of his generation. After a lifetime spent observing, admiring and explaining the natural world, Attenborough is tirelessly devoting his final years to alerting us all to the vandalism of man-made global warming and the approaching apocalypse of climate catastrophe.
Forrest helped to fund Sir David’s latest and maybe most persuasive film, Ocean. Filmed between August 2022 and November 2024 in locations including the Azores, California, Indonesia, the UK, Liberia, Antarctica, the Mediterranean and Mauritius, it reveals as never before not only the wonders, beauty and majesty of underwater life, but the catastrophic harm being inflicted on it by human greed and ignorance.
The film’s release in May was timed to exert maximum influence on the third UN Ocean Conference in Nice. By all accounts, many delegates were deeply affected by the revelations it contained.
The film exposes a shocking malpractice but reaches a surprisingly optimistic conclusion.
The producers hired a powerful trawler and filmed the havoc it wreaks on the undersea habitat. I’ll let Sir David take up the story; he does these things rather well: “A modern industrial bottom trawler scours the ocean floor, with the chain or metal beam forcing anything that it disturbs into the net behind. It smashes its way across the seabed, destroying nearly everything in its path, often on the hunt for just a single species. Almost everything else is discarded: over three-quarters of a trawler’s catch may be thrown away.
It’s hard to imagine a more wasteful way to catch fish.
“An area close to the size of the Amazon rainforest is trawled every year – and much of that seabed is ploughed again, over and over. This churning of the sediment unleashes vast amounts of carbon dioxide, which in turn contributes to the warming of our planet. The trawlers tear the seabed with such force that the trails of destruction can be seen from space. Very few places are safe from this.”
From this horror, the film moves to the Channel Islands – not ours, the ones off the coast of California, where overfishing and the consequent depletion of fish stocks brought about one of the first Marine Reserves, or No Take Zones.
The results surprised even the most optimistic observers. Provided with a safe haven, many species started breeding at an unprecedented rate and quickly filled the No Take Zone to overflowing – resulting in an abundance of fish and shellfish in adjacent and even more distant areas, where fishing was still allowed.
Attenborough compared this happy outcome to the international ban on whaling, which in a decade resulted in significant regeneration, not only of whales, but many other species of fish as well: “Through the course of my life, we have been on a course of ocean discovery – and what a journey it has been! When I first saw the sea as a young boy, it was thought of as a vast wilderness, to be tamed and mastered for the benefit of humanity. Now, as I approach the end of my life, we know the opposite is true.
“It is my great hope that we all come to see the ocean, not as a dark and distant place, with little relevance to our lives on land, but as the lifeblood of our home. I’m sure that nothing is more important, for if we save the sea, we save our world.”
Anyone of any age who cares about or loves the sea should see this inspiring film, share its message and help to turn its hope into reality.
Most nations have committed to protect 30% of the global ocean by 2030. Now, the responsibility lies with all of us to ensure this happens.
