
I was lucky enough to watch a preview of recently. Due for cinema release globally on 8 May (Attenborough’s 99th birthday), the film is the naturalist’s call to take better care of our seas.
Much of the footage will feel familiar for fans of nature documentaries, such as a seal swimming through a kelp forest, aerial shots of whale pods and the bustle of a coral reef. But that doesn’t make it any less beautiful or evocative of life under the waves.
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And there is shocking new material, with net-eye-views of what happens when a bottom trawler violently scrapes the seabed as it fishes. A comparison of dredged and non-dredged scallop fields was eye-opening.
While the film can feel a bit like a campaign video, as someone who learned about this kind of damage at university 20 years ago, I hope it raises awareness of this hidden destruction.
All is not lost, says Attenborough in the film’s final section, and that message of hope is surely something to build on.