“Ocean”, with commentary by Sir David Attenborough, “takes viewers on a breathtaking journey showing there is nowhere more vital for our survival, more full of life, wonder, or surprise, than the ocean” [1]
The film, released on May 8th, this year, informed by recent science, reveals the richness of life that lives both below and above the ocean waves.
But this is no dispassionate account; it evokes a range of emotions – awe, horror, anger, despair and hope will assail the viewer, as the film navigates through the beauty of ocean life, the attacks and threats against its beautiful life, and possible solutions to these problems.
The film does not advocate a vegan diet, and Attenborough does not directly propose eating less fish or meat, although that could well be a conclusion drawn from the film
Although, in my opinion, unless the film inspires a greater transition to plant based diets, or at least a significant reduction in the consumption of fish and meat, the Hope expressed in the film may turn to Disappointment.
Awesome Life
The film begins with a view of some of the ocean life, of its depths, its 40,000 submarine mountains, of ocean currents, and shark migrations, of shallow coastal seas with their giant kelp forests and coral reefs, of the amazing phytoplankton at the base of the ocean food chain
“So the open ocean is not a featureless desert, after all. It is more connected than we had ever imagined”
The Horror of Scallop Dredging
And then suddenly the story changes from awe to horror
To the background of the jarring, reverberating sound of a scallop trawler Attenborough describes the scene,
“A modern Industrial bottom trawler scours the ocean floor with a chain or metal beam forcing anything it disturbs into the net behind. It smashes its way across the sea bed, destroying nearly everything in its path, often on the hunt for just a single species … almost everything else is discarded”
Local fishermen watch powerless as trawlers destroy their livelihood
The consequences are devastating for sea life and for the planet as huge quantities of Carbon Dioxide are released, contributing to climate breakdown
Astonishingly, this is legal, encouraged by law, allowed in “Marine Protected Areas” and supported by billions of dollars of government subsidies our money.
This is the true price of a scallop
The Nightmare Continues – Industrial Trawling
Attenborough then moves on to look at Industrial Trawlers.
“Lines of baited hooks. 50 miles long wheel in millions of sharks every year. We have now killed two thirds of all large predatory fish. Walls of nets, hundreds of metres high leave few survivors. Sharks and turtles survived the extinction of the dinosaurs, but may not outlive this”
Coastal communities lose the food source they have relied on for Millennia. This is modern colonialism at sea
The balance and viability of life is destroyed as the hunted sharks are no longer there to play their essential role in maintaining the lives of all inhabitants of coral reefs.
Antarctic Krill
“Almost every animal in the Antarctic relies on just a single species, a small red crustacean, Antarctic Krill”
However, the factory ships are everywhere including Antarctica. And they are fishing for krill.
The ships suck hundreds of thousands of tons of krill into vast nets. It is largely processed into livestock and pet food (50-60%) and health supplements (25-30%)
As a result, antarctic wildlife is threatened with starvation, and entangled in nets, sometimes fatally, just to feed farm animals [2]
The Oceans Can Recover
But Attenborough is hopeful,
“I would find it hard not to lose hope were it not for the most remarkable discovery of all. The ocean can recover faster than we had ever thought possible. It can bounce back to life. For, if left alone, it may not just recover but thrive beyond anything anyone alive has ever seen”
Attenborough then goes on to describe several projects where this is to be seen, in a No-Take zone off the west coast of France and Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the Hawaiian islands where 14 million migrating seabirds now return each year [3]
In addition, the new life is seen to ‘Spillover’ into surrounding areas
Comments
The film is well worth watching to gain an appreciation of the awesome life within the oceans and the threats to their existence.
The planet is facing many interrelated crises; the threat to ocean life is just one as “humanity accelerates into a deadly Polycrisis” [4]
Marine reserves and No-Take zones are necessary for ocean recovery, but will not be enough if other problems such as Global Warming, Ocean Acidification, Plastic Pollution and Agricultural Chemical runoff are not solved, and most of these problems will not be fixed without significant reductions in livestock farming and meat production
Good News. A month after the film was released, the UK government announced a plan to ban bottom trawling in 41 of the 178 MPAs [5]
The United Nations Ocean Conference is meeting in France from 9th to 13th June this week [6]. It will be interesting to see what actions it takes to address the issues highlighted by the film.
Since this Piece was posted, George Monbiot has commented, “Attenborough’s Ocean is the film I’ve been waiting my whole career for – now the world must act on its message … The documentary shows the damage that fishing does to our planet. So why does the industry still hold governments to ransom?” [7]
References
[1] https://www.oceanfilm.net/
[2] https://seashepherd.org/2025/04/18/antarctic-krill-supertrawler-kills-humpback-whale
[3] https://phys.org/news/2022-10-world-largest-no-fishing-zone-benefits.html
[4] A Climate of Truth, page 1, https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Mike-Berners-Lee/A-Climate-of-Truth–Why-We-Need-It-and-How-To-Get-It/31198679
