Planet Ocean Page #3

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They set out to conquer

a new space.

The larvae that survive, fasten

to new walls in the seabed,

to perpetuate the vast

coral city that gave birth.

It is a continuous expansion.

For 500 million years,

coral grows, dies and grows again.

They have forged an empire

visible from space.

The largest living structure

of the planet.

All fauna of the ocean

is closely or remotely connected

with these oases of life.

In Polynesia

groupers make a long journey

to lay their eggs

on the side of the reef.

The huge gathering

for these, usually solitary, animals

is to protect their offspring.

But this meeting is also visited

by gray sharks on the prowl.

During their lives,

female groupers begin

to change sex

and become males

once reaching above

a certain weight and age.

They spawn by leaps and bounds,

mixing seeds.

The females, which have been weakened by

spawning, are an easy prey.

The shark attack.

They will kill some grouper

but, paradoxically, this predation

is vital to the entire species

that would otherwise reproduce

too fast and become too large.

Again, nature does not tolerate excess.

There is always a regulator

hovering over another.

Hammerhead sharks

are formidable hunters.

They appeared 20 million years ago

and are top predators.

The hammer-shaped head serves as a fin

and promotes agility.

The position of the eyes, wide apart,

offers a 3D vision.

They hunt fish...

and other sharks.

It is as if predation dictated

the evolution of the species.

And here we come into the picture.

Here we are, man.

The last link in the chain of life.

We have no predator above us.

We fish for all living things,

Millions of sharks each year.

Often, just for the value of the fins.

We started here,

on the other side of the ocean mirror.

We occupied the emerging land.

A long time ago,

we built villages to protect us,

as they still exist

at San Blas in Panama.

We can not swim like fish,

So we devised boats

to move around the oceans.

Then we built a world

like other species before us

had built.

To build our cities,

we constructed bridges between islands,

We overcame the ocean through land.

We learned to dig through mountains,

divert rivers

and even create new islands.

We built an empire

even greater than the coral reefs.

Our walls, our giant cities,

can be seen from the air.

Through our intelligence, we, the weak

humanity, actually become strong.

Rich or poor,

half of our population

lives within 100 kilometers of water.

Almost the entire population

Sub-Saharan Africa

is concentrated on the coastline.

The city of Lagos in Nigeria alone

has 17 million inhabitants.

There are more than 100,000 people

in the slums on the coast.

The population here has migrated,

and has no land to claim,

So they turn towards the sea.

We are more than seven billion people.

With every second that ticks by,

there are two more people on the planet

that must be fed.

And we're hungry,

So we turn naturally

to the ocean to feed us.

Three billion people are directly

dependent on marine resources.

For nearly a billion people

fish is the only source

of animal proteins.

The ocean

forms the core of our survival.

Four million of our fishing boats

depart daily to conquer the ocean.

Most boats are only

small boats such as this,

discharged every morning

on the coast of Senegal.

Fishing was for us

from the start a family affair,

from generation to generation

it was carried and passed on.

Although it is a dangerous profession,

when the earth runs for food,

the poorest always turn toward the ocean.

Total worldwide,

counting indirect jobs

and families

fishing sustains

500 million people.

Here I see the abundance of the ocean,

able to feed an entire people.

Since the beginning of our history

We have collected

natural seaweed on the coast.

They have been around 3 billion

and a half years.

We have learned to cultivate the sea

as we cultivated the land.

Seaweed require only six weeks

before it can be harvested.

It only need sunlight

and the movements of the currents.

Today, in Bali in Indonesia,

we cultivate seaweed and we extract

a nutritious gelatine.

This form of agriculture

produces 15 million tons of seaweed

that is exported worldwide.

Brown, green and red seaweed

serves all purposes,

medicine, textiles, fertilizer, food.

We make small farms of the sea,

transforming it to estuaries and

aquaculture fields.

There are more than 530.000 hectares of the globe

dedicated to the cultivation of seaweed,

thus providing millions sea farmers

their livelihood.

In South Korea's Wando archipelago,

there are more than 200 islands transformed

to seaweed farms.

These beautiful paintings

are huge nets spread out in the sun,

used for crop drying.

Of the 30,000 species of seaweed

which grow in the sea,

there are around 50 edible.

Here we cultivate kelp,

large seaweed that can

grow to three meters in length.

In Asia, seaweed is a

basic source of food.

These sugar-sweetened leaves contain

proteins, mineral salts and vitamins.

We have fished for the last 40,000 years,

continually improving on our equipment

and technique.

Once again my strength comes

from my intelligence,

which compensates for my weaknesses.

It allowed me to imagine

nets more elaborate, increasingly effective.

What changed everything,

was the invention of the deep sea trawl,

a large network with a funnel-shaped

opening like the mouth of the whale shark.

Our nets are so large

some 40 km long.

Fishing has become an industry.

It is no longer a family affair,

but investment and technology.

In order to increase our catch,

fishermen have formed flotillas.

Then whole factories went out to sea.

We use probes, radar,

and focus all our resources

on the hunt for marine life.

Each year we catch

90 million tons of fish, worldwide.

Half of this catch is made by only one

percent of our fishing boats.

Our trawlers, our trawls and nets are

so great that we do not choose our catch.

We take what comes,

and sort it later

depending on the market value of the fish.

Peruvian anchovy,

Alaskan pollock, Atlantic herring,

we capture it all.

There is no limit to our hunting,

except the set fishing quotas.

But who can avoid

going over it?

Worldwide, 80% of commercial fish stocks

are fully exploited

or over-exploited.

Our fishing has reached a ceiling.

The biological limit is reached.

How did it come to this?

Through our intensive fishing

millions of fish are sacrificed.

This is wasteful,

what is rejected after the catch,

or fish

who are crushed in our nets.

Fish that died for nothing.

As the surface stock is exhausted,

I fish deeper.

Our fishing trawlers are now

at more than 3000 meters.

I fish blind,

fauna that I barely know.

The fauna of the abyss,

who lives alone in the dark.

At that depth

the light disappears gradually.

There dwells life in this absence of light.

And what a life!

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