This was by far the most important episode of the series. I am sure that many viewers were troubled by the scale of some of the issues touched upon in the programme; as biological scientists, we live in this state of concern perpetually, both professionally and personally. I tend to see a disconnect amongst the public, that the world we inhabit in our cities and towns are independent of ecological relationships that existed before humans, and now around humans, particularly when it comes to ocean life. In reality, this is not the case. Humans inhabit a unique ecological niche in the history of life on Earth, in that we are the only superpredators ever to regularly predate on the adult forms of other apex predators, in every environment on Earth. There has been talk of considering the era of humans a new geological epoch, defined by extinction, climate change and a stratigraphic layer of plastic for the geologists of the future. Accepting these problems are happening, let alone confronting them, can be depressing. I can’t speak for everyone, but taking a step back, as a scientist, and thinking of these as an interesting series of problems to be understood, is at least how I have decided apply myself to it. Entire books and feature length films have been made on each of the ecological issues in this final episode, so I will only focus on overfishing.

Unlike life on land, which has been drastically modified by humans for as long as we have existed, ocean life has only become heavily exploited more recently (although setting a baseline can be contentious). We have thought of life in the ocean as this resource which will  never be exhausted. Marine biologists have learned in the last few decades that this is not the case. A high profile example is the cod fishery off of Newfoundland, Canada, which was a plentiful food source for 500 years, thought to be the most productive fishery in the world. As fishing technologies improved, more fish could be caught more efficiently and in less time. After regulation failed to curb declines, the cod population completely collapsed in the early 1990s, and has still not recovered. With such a large amount of large predatory cod absent from the ecosystem, a trophic cascade occurred, where smaller fish severely declined and zooplankton, seals and crabs exploded in population. Meanwhile, cod in this area rarely reach adulthood here anymore. Managing the fishery like a resource by considering only population size, and not complex life histories and other ecological relationships, lead to this economic and biological catastrophe.

The wild caught fish that we eat is wildlife, and they shouldn’t be glossed over with the same brush as I sometimes see. Different commercially available fish are as ecologically different to each other as songbirds are to tigers. Tunas for example are apex predators, and although eating tigers, sharks and lions is unusual in the Western world, tuna consumption is extremely widespread. Imagine feeding tiger meat to your cat. Some bluefin tuna can grow to the size of a small car and have endangered or critically endagnered IUCN conservation status (on the same level as the Bengal tiger and black rhinoceros) and yet are still available at most sushi restaurants. There is always talk of ‘dolphin friendly’ tuna, but tuna themselves require urgent conservation as well. Despite improved scientific method, commercial fish species continue to decline worldwide, and faster than estimated.

I am sometimes asked: as a concerned citizen, what can I do in the face of these problems? Honestly, there is no easy answer. Some of the things I would recommend have been suggested a thousand times before, but I will make a few suggestions anyway:

• Only buy what you need. One third of all food is thrown out without being consumed – enough to feed two billion people in a time when one billion are malnourished – a tremendous waste of resources, and your own money. The same applies for all products – for everything you can buy to be produced, finite resources have had to be mined, extensive packaging has been used and goods have been shipped around the world.
• Use less packaging and bottles. 3 billion one-use coffee cups are thrown away in the UK every year, and less than 1% are recycled. This is one cup thrown away in the UK for every person in North and South America, Europe and Africa combined. Get a water bottle, reusable shopping bags and a refillable coffee cup. And is a straw really needed? This is one of the easiest changes to make.
• If you are going to eat seafood, be aware of where it comes from, and what kind of animal you are actually eating. As a general rule, it is better to eat lower down the food chain – sardines, jellyfish and shellfish for instance, and pole and line caught fish minimises bycatch associated with longlines and the habitat destruction associated with trawls. None of this is confidential information – a quick search and you can find plenty of information from the Marine Conservation Society (they even have iOS and Android apps) about where different species come from and how they are caught.
• Similarly, different foods require different resources. As a general rule, a diet with the least amount of environmental impact consists primarily of fruits, vegetables and grains and little or no meat. And if you can, buy produce that has not travelled a long way – less air miles, and less wastage from spoilage during long transits. See video below.
• Above all else, understand these issues – to me, this takes away their overwhelming amorphous terror. Start by learning about the human species in context. I cannnot recommend Elizabeth Kolbert’s incredible Pulitzer-winning The Sixth Extinction  enough, as a highly readable introduction to the concept. She interviews scientists watching their life’s work go extinct, visits an island made of bleached coral on the Great Barrier Reef and talks about how perceptions take a generation or so to change. Those more interested in marine life specifically should try Callum Roberts’ The Unnatural History of the Sea, who meticulously ploughs through archaic records from early fishermen, pirates and explorers to set a new baseline for human impacts on the ocean.

Despite grave threats facing the ocean, life is remarkably resilient, and where beneficial alternatives are provided, there are success stories. Despite resistance from the fishing industry, no-take zones like those in New Zealand have proved highly successful at restoring fully mature fish and species not seen in decades, protecting biodiversity and then being available for fishing as well. For us, the four-year Blue Belt plan aims to protect 4 million square kilometres of marine habitat, an area larger than India, across 7 UK Overseas Territories. Ultimately, getting business to prioritise conservation, and large scale international cooperation on legislation are ultimate goals, but these large scale changes always begin with small groups of scientist, campaigners and passionate citizens. Some of this has come from our university. If you can convince your place of work to waste less food or use less plastic, then why not do it? You can also go here to check if your local MP is on board with the Blue Belt plan, and contact them to tell them to vote in its favour. As a country with the fifth largest area of marine habitat in its jurisdiction, having this go through UK parliament would be globally significant.

The public engagement from this new Blue Planet series has been extremely heartening. It was so popular in China that it slowed down the internet there, and is the third most watched series of the last five years. I look forward to seeing what people inspired by the series will do in the future.

Feel free to ask me any further questions on Twitter @kieranyes.

The post Blue Planet 2 | Episode 7 | Our Blue Planet appeared first on Exploring our Oceans .

As mentioned in previous posts, each Blue Planet 2 episode has had a strong conservation message of its own, told from the perspective of the affected animals. This episode, however, will have quite a different tone and a serious message to share, featuring stories from the perspectives of the animals themselves and the scientists studying them. Our Blue Planet will explore the human impacts on some of the most loved characters from the series, something Executive Producer, James Honeyborne viewed as a natural conclusion to the series. Expect to see the corals, turtles and albatrosses back again, but this time to tell the heart-wrenching stories of their lives in a rapidly changing world. Sir David Attenborough is also expected to feature heavily throughout the episode, with his own personal look at the problems facing our oceans, along with scientists and conservationists from around the world, including our very own Dr Jon Copley. As one of the chief scientific correspondents to the series, Jon will appear in the upcoming episode to express his personal experience of our changing ocean, most likely regarding Antarctica, where he was a member of the team that descended to 1,000 m in the Alucia submersibles for ‘The Deep‘ episode.

Experience Dr Jon Copley’s Antarctic adventure as scientific correspondant for Blue Planet 2.

It is now (almost) universally recognised that human activity is having a profound effect on our blue planet and that the ocean is experiencing great change at an alarming rate. The problems that marine fauna face are widespread and ever-increasing – warming, acidification, overfishing, noise pollution, seabed mining, ecotoxicology and plastic pollution – each a human-induced threat. In 2017 alone, a great number of studies have been published exploring the effect of these threats on marine life, including on the recovery of the North Atlantic right whale, the effective functioning of both tropical and cold-water coral reefs, and the distribution of Southen Ocean seabirds. I predict the strongest message from the episode is likely to concern plastics, something which Sir David feels strongly about. A changing ocean is not only a threat to the marine environment – as we’ve seen in each previous episode, all life is intertwined with the ocean so any change can heavily effect humans too, from the decimation of fish stocks to rising sea levels. I, therefore, believe that the upcoming episode will have a profound effect on the audience, after all, the episode is titled Our Blue Planet.

As with the final episode of Planet Earth 2, there will also inevitably be a message of hope. Conservation and citizen science success stories are being shared by individuals around the world – from the recovery of kelp forest ecosystems in Monterey Bay (as seen in Green Seas) to the protection of sea turtle nesting beaches by Caribbean communities, these accounts are sure to be highlighted towards the end of the episode. Let us not forget the progress made at home too – the implementation of Marine Protected Areas and Special Areas of Conservation around the UK has allowed our marine wildlife to bounce back, and local initiatives to rescue stranded marine mammals and conduct beach cleans are helping to combat our plastic pollution problem.

As ever, feel free to share any comments or questions regarding Our Blue Planet – I hope you enjoy the final episode of the amazing series, Blue Planet 2!

The post What to expect from Blue Planet 2 – Our Blue Planet appeared first on Exploring our Oceans .

Huge shoals of plankton move from the deep sea and back every day as the sun rises and sets. There are massive migrations of small fish and squid that follow them to exploit this resource, as well as larger predators which hunt them. This enormous movement of biomass from the deep sea to surface and back happens every single day.

Despite the colossal size of this environment, Attenborough very rightly points out that it is still by no means hugely separated from human life. As well as the famous Pacific Garbage Patch that Elin talked about in another post, there is plastic and other marine waste in the most pristine and remote coral reefs. I have heard stories from fellow divers in the Indo-west Pacific about seeing used nappies floating past on dives. I was lucky enough to be involved with a school trip to Baubau near Sulawesi in Indonesia, and we spent a few hours on an uninhabited island cleaning up trash. On another island in Malaysia I found a DVD player and a washing machine on the beach. These are unusual exceptions – polystyrene, plastic bags and straws are ubiquitous in the ocean anywhere in the world. It’s no different in the UK – the Marine Conservation Society at Southampton spend hundreds of hours removing rubbish from beaches on the South coast. When we see pollution in an area we can all agree it is unpleasant, but as a scientist we understand it in context of this colossal, global and unprecedented problem.

This affects all levels of the marine food web. We tend to think of the deep sea as being this remote alien world, but it is still inextricably linked to human life. Microplastics accumulate in deep sea sediments – at 10,000 times higher concentrations than at the surface. Up to 90% of seabirds have plastic in their guts. Another aspect not explored in the programme is that other pollutants dissolved in water – fouling paint, oil and other contaminants – accumulate on plastics, and so make plastic even more toxic to marine life. Pollution becomes more concentrated in higher levels of the food chain in a process known as ‘biomagnification’, where smaller fish with some pollution in them are eaten in large quantities by larger fish. This means that top predators like tuna, sharks and marine mammals are the most contaminated. And as well as being concerning for environmental reasons, the seafood we eat are no exception – plastic has been found in a third of UK-caught fish, and shellfish lovers may consume up to 11,000 plastic particles per year.

Biodegradable plastic is not biodegradable in the sense one might think. These plastics are held together with degradable fibres, so they break down into smaller components. Eventually, they break down into ‘microplastics’, which then spread into every corner of the ocean. It has been suggested that a layer of plastic will be what will distinguish the human era in the fossil record of the future.

It is extremely heartening to see the reactions to this problem, and some countries (most recently Kenya) have even completely banned plastic bags outright. Hopefully Blue Planet will encourage more people than ever to think twice about whether they need that straw or bag, and eventually encourage governments and large companies to move away from the excessive use of this material.

The post Blue Planet | Episode 4 | Big Blue appeared first on Exploring our Oceans .

Known as the world’s greatest wilderness, the ocean is a vast environment stretching over 70% of the world’s surface. In contrast to the sheltered reefs and coastal shelves that border our shores, the open ocean is not unlike a desert with little food and protection for marine life; yet some of the ocean’s most remarkable species make this ‘big blue’ their home. These animals have thrived here by exploiting specialist ecological niches, such as the fast-swimming striped marlin that navigate the open ocean in search of their widely-dispersed prey, sardines, or the three-metre-long oceanic sunfish that specialise in jellyfish hunting.

Expect to see the day-to-day problems and perils that these animals face – raising your young in this wilderness can be a huge challenge, leaving scientists perplexed about where and how many species accomplish such a task. It is well-known that sea turtles, for example, lay their eggs in the sands of specific beaches across the world; however, we are still unsure where the hatchlings go for several years of their life after they make their dash to the freedom, and dangers, of the sea. As ever, advancements in technologies such as satellite tracking juvenile sea turtles is helping to progress the study of open ocean animals.

Another scene we’re likely to enjoy is a feeding frenzy of dolphins, tuna, and sharks, as a shoal of smaller fish trapped near the surface provides a momentary but plentiful feast in the wilderness. Whilst this scene of ocean predators attacking large bait balls (tightly packed shoals of small fish) is one that we have previously experienced through The Blue Planet, the Blue Planet 2 team has taken the frenzy to the next level with new aerial technology revealing the truth behind ‘boiling seas’.

I am also confident that this episode will continue to reinforce a key message from previous episodes, that despite its enormity, we are having a large and undeniable impact on our ocean and the marine life within. We have previously seen the detrimental effects of climate change through the eyes of a walrus mother and calf struggling to find sea ice in the warming Arctic, deep-sea trawling devastating cold-water coral reefs, and distressing scenes of coral bleaching along the Great Barrier Reef. Marine litter, especially plastics, is another increasing threat to life in our ocean, with around 8 million tonnes of plastic dumped into the ocean annually. It is therefore unsurprising that plastic has quickly become one of the most worrying and serious impacts that we are having on the marine environment – blanketing surface waters in some regions (for one, the great Pacific garbage patch is twice the size of Texas) and mimicking food sources like jellyfish for many marine animals. After experiencing making Blue Planet 2, Sir David Attenborough recently stated that plastics are one of his biggest concerns for the ocean, urging global action for the reduction of plastics consumption, so expect some heart-wrenching footage of its effect on the ‘big blue’.

Feel free to share any comments or questions regarding The Big Blue – I hope you enjoy the episode!

Inspired by the episode? Get involved in ocean conservation!

The post What to expect from Blue Planet 2 – Big Blue appeared first on Exploring our Oceans .