Sir David Attenborough makes ‘the most remarkable discovery’ in new documentary

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, this titan of natural history 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. “Once it becomes a conversation, leaders listen and that will help them to change, to make the right decision, for all of us,” says Scholey.

“We are all owners of the ocean. All of us, it belongs to us, and they act for us. So we have to let them know that we want them to make it good for us.”

The film shares “wonderful discoveries” while also uncovering “why our ocean is in such poor health, and, perhaps most importantly, shows how it can bounce back to life”, says Attenborough.

And for those who feel a certain amount of terror and trepidation when faced with the great deep, the filmmakers hope being immersed in images of colossal kelp forests, technicolour coral reefs, slow-growing red coralline algae and stories of sublime sea creatures, will encourage people to embrace the ocean a little more.

“We’re not sea creatures, right? We’re land creatures,” acknowledges Nowlan. “We don’t necessarily think of the sea as being the lifeblood of our home, but in reality, it’s responsible for every other breath we take.

"It’s part of our daily lives. It’s responsible for so much of our food, our stable climate, our breathable atmosphere, for absorbing 90 per cent of the excess heat since the Industrial Revolution, for giving three billion people on Earth a reliable food source, and for booming coastal and fishing economies.”

So if your experience of the sea is minimal, it’s time to change that.

“Go and have a look at it. Go and get in it. Learn about it, enjoy it. Go whale-watching, go bird-watching. Go coastal foraging, go rock pooling. Learn to love it, because you can’t love what you don’t know and the sea is for everyone,” says Nowlan passionately.

“The ocean is the greatest shared asset on this planet. It’s not for the management and exploitation of a few governments or companies or individuals, it’s for every living being on Earth, and it’s up to all of us to say how it’s managed, because without it, none of us can survive.”

It’s this dread factor that comes hand-in-hand with marvelling at the ocean, that can make some people turn away from it. For instance, once you know it’s in trouble, and also, how vital it is in the climate crisis, it can be overwhelming, paralysing even.

“The most important thing for it right now is to suck vast quantities of CO2 out [of the atmosphere],” explains Scholey. “And at present we have a slightly wrecked ocean which is not doing anything like the job it should be doing.”

Fishing practices like bottom trawling, churn up the seabed and release previously captured CO2, before much of the catch is then discarded.

When faced with that kind of large-scale degradation of the ocean, what can any one of us do to really make a difference?

“The most important areas to protect are actually the coastlines near us,” says co-director Colin Butfield, the co-founder and chair of free global library Open Planet.

“That’s where we get most of our fish. It’s the area that regenerates the fastest. And actually in most countries, you could have marine-protected areas right on the edge of shore, and it would have an incredible benefit to everybody that lives there.”

He says that for starters, support marine protection where you live (check out the Marine Conservation Society on what you can actively do to help: mcsuk.org).

Those positive impacts can be exponential too.

“Protecting areas of ocean is very different from if you do the same on land,” says Nowlan. “In the sea those areas fill up with life really, really quickly, much quicker than on land, and in a spectacular way. And that life floods out. It overflows, it spills out to the surrounding areas and revives huge areas of ocean.”

So do not let despair take hold. “All is not lost. We just need to replicate these bright spots,” says Enric Sala, executive producer, scientific advisor and National Geographic explorer.

“I hope the film will have this power to make people fall in love with the ocean, be upset and even angry because of what we’re doing to the ocean, but then feel motivated and hopeful and inspired to take action to bring it back.”

Ocean With David Attenborough to premiere on World Oceans Day – Sunday, June 8 at 8pm on National Geographic, and streaming on Disney+ the same day.