Attenborough: If we save the sea, we save our world

SIR David Attenborough has issued a powerful rallying cry to protect the oceans in a film released this week to coincide with his 99th birthday.

- 

The new documentary, Ocean With David Attenborough, includes dramatic footage of the devastation fishing practices such as bottom trawling wreak on the seabed and its wildlife, as well as highlighting the wonder of natural habitats, from kelp forests to coral reefs, and the need to protect them.

In one sequence the camera follows a bottom trawl - where nets are dragged with a metal beam across the seabed to catch fish - as it travels over the ocean floor, destroying the habitat, stirring up silt, which releases carbon, and scooping up species indiscriminately.

It also shows before and after footage of scallop dredging off Scotland's Isle of Arran, to highlight the damage it causes, with Sir David warning that bottom trawling is still allowed in marine protected areas worldwide, and subsidised by governments.