IF WE SAVE THE SEA, WE SAVE OUR WORLD

SIR DAVID Attenborough’s voice is in most of our heads, a voice oozing wonder and gravitas, one that for decades has regaled us with incredible facts about life on Earth, and impressed upon us the dangers of taking it for granted.

- BY ELLA WALKER

In May, the legendary broadcaster, who gave us Blue Planet and Life on Earth, turned 99. A month on, his new documentary, Ocean with David Attenborough, will air on Disney for World Oceans Day (June 8). In it, he is set to share the “most remarkable discovery”.

“Life began in the deep blue sea. In this magical world, everything is more connected than we had ever imagined,” says the biologist in the trailer. “After a lifetime of filming the natural world, I now understand the most important place on Earth is not on land, it’s life at its most mesmerising, and we must open our eyes to what is happening right now below the waves.”

“We have drained the life from our ocean,” he continues. “I would find it hard not to lose hope, were it not for the most remarkable discovery, it was beyond our wildest dreams: If we save the sea, we save our world.”

“David wanted this to be his legacy. After 100 years of being on this planet, of showing us more of the natural world than any other human alive, he’s come to this epic conclusion that there’s nowhere more important in the world than the sea,” says director and producer Toby Nowlan, an Our Planet II expedition leader and diver. “For him, this is absolutely his most important message; the most important story he’s ever told.”

Telling it right now is particularly crucial. In June, at a major UN Conference in Nice, France, world leaders will discuss plans to agree to protect 30% of the ocean. “What we all passionately believe is that if we do that, it will have such a beneficial effect on the ocean,” says co-director Keith Scholey (Life on Our Planet and Our Planet II). “If we could, in any way, persuade world leaders to do it, we had to do everything we could.”

Getting us all talking about the ocean is vital.