Sylvia Earle on Protecting Our Seas

NATURE|Vol 465|13 May 2010 OPINION

Q&A: Sylvia Earle on protecting our seas Oceanographer and underwater explorer Sylvia Earle served as chief scientist of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during 1990–92, and is a US national committee member of the Census of Marine Life, due to conclude this October. Earle advised on Disney’s newly released cut of the documentary film Oceans; here she explains why films are important for raising awareness of the state of our seas. E

What does Oceans show? the magnificent production of in The documentary was crafted images that will move people AR ER M ER

by a team of talented French towards caring about the ocean. o film-makers headed by Jacques D Perrin, who made Microcosmos What is the goal of the in 1996 and Winged Migration Census of Marine Life? in 2001. Oceans allows people To document all forms of life to experience vicariously in the seas. What started a what it is like to explore the decade ago as the Census of seas. The film-makers have Fishes has now recorded more captured rare behaviours, in than 200,000 marine species. some cases contributing to Thousands of scientists around scientific understanding. They the world have been diving into used breathtaking techniques museum collections of marine to position the cameras in the specimens and making undersea middle of leaping dolphins, expeditions. Even so, less than above and under the water, and 5% of the ocean has been seen, waited weeks to capture blue let alone explored to look for life. whales feeding. There may be 40 million forms of life in the sea, not counting How were you involved? seal. We have watched the serious decline the bacteria. Nearly all the major divisions of Disney asked me to review the footage as of about half of the coral reefs, plus bluefin life are there. Every dive I take is like diving they prepared their version, which is shorter tuna, whales, swordfish and marlin. The into the history of life on Earth. than the French documentary. I gave them oceans are our life-support system: they information that is scientifically accurate and shape climate and weather, drive planetary Is the deep sea best explored by people or encouraged them not to anthropomorphize. chemistry and generate most of the oxygen unmanned probes? in the atmosphere. The oceans are changing There is no substitute for the human presence. How will the film contribute to the public’s in ways that are not in our favour, possibly It has been 50 years since people went to the understanding of marine science? more in the past half-century than during all deepest part of the sea, 10 kilometres down First, it makes the ocean visible. You can’t of human history, and we are the agents of in the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean, care about something if you don’t know that change. and they were there for only half an hour. I about it. The film can awaken people to how want transparent deep-water submarines to wonderful the ocean is, what we don’t know Having consulted on the making of take scientists, policy-makers, teachers and about it and what we need to know. Second, it Oceans, the Census of Marine Life recently poets to the bottom of the sea. We need new helps people to understand that marine life is chose not to associate itself with the materials that can withstand the pressure in trouble and so are we. Using the ocean as a Disney cut. Why? at those depths but still allow visibility. The source of food has become a global problem The French version gives more attention Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in now that we have the technology to catch to the message that the ocean is in trouble. Massachusetts recently built a robotic device, and market unsustainably large quantities The Disney cut has a fuller narration, and Nereus, that has now gone to full ocean depth. of ocean wildlife. Trawling, for example, is some of the scenes that could be troubling But if you want the most information in the like using a bulldozer to trap squirrels. By to children — such as that of an animatronic least amount of time, send a human. the middle of this century, the possibility of shark having its fin cut off for shark-fin soup commercially exploiting ocean wildlife will — have been taken out. It is sophisticated What remains unknown about the seas? be over, unless we change now. enough to entertain adults, but clear enough One big missing link is their role in the for a family audience. It would have been carbon cycle. The oceans, where most Is the film right to take a nice to have had one version that the whole of Earth’s carbon is stored, are known conservationist tone? world could see, as with Blue Planet in to regulate temperature for the planet. Yes. Since I started exploring oceans in the 1990. But some films, such as March of the Climate discussions are just beginning to 1950s, we have seen the collapse of many Penguins in 2005, are recut for a different acknowledge this issue. ■ populations of ocean wildlife — fish, oysters, market. If the census wishes to distance itself Jascha Hoffman is a writer based in clams, lobsters — and the extinction of from Disney’s version of Oceans, that is its San Francisco, California. some species, notably the Caribbean monk right. My personal focus is on celebrating e-mail: [email protected]