The Nature of Nature | National Geographic

[Music] Too few can feel. I am the sea and the sea is me. Growing up in Catalonia in the 1970s, every Sunday I would sit in front of la caja tonta, the dumb box, watching my hero, Jack Cousteau. [Music] The exotic places, the daring underwater explorers, the spectacular creatures. [Music] It was all I wanted to do with my life, and sometimes dreams do come true. [Music] Now I've traveled the world many times over, falling in love with nature over and over again. [Music] Following in my hero's footsteps. [Music]

But a lot has changed since Khrushchev's time. In 2019, I explored nearshore waters of Costa Rica, the unprotected areas where Cousteau might have found a thriving ecosystem: barren, a few small fish, and no sharks, the top predators that should be hunting here, like lions in the savannah. [Music] When nature has taken millennia to create, we humans have destroyed in only a few generations. Here I could be anywhere on our planet where life isn't protected or valued. These beautiful places are incredibly fragile, and without them, we will not survive. [Music]

I am Dr. Enric Sala, a National Geographic explorer, and like many of you around the world, I have been spending my time at home to help stop the spread of COVID-19. The pandemic has been keeping me from doing what I love: exploring the ocean. Twelve years ago, I started the Pristine Seas project at National Geographic, which uses a combination of research and media to help convince government leaders to create marine protected areas in their waters. [Music]

The need to protect our wild places, on land as well as underwater, couldn't be more urgent. To understand why we are suddenly at the crossroads, when our grandparents' generation seemed to live in a time of abundance, requires some quick historical perspective. The way we fished, farmed, raised livestock, and developed the land was for centuries, and even millennia, done at a pace that did not have global consequences. But everything changed with the industrial revolution. In just the past couple hundred years, we got so good so fast at extracting these same resources, at scales once unimaginable, that the consequences are biting back at us. [Music]

Those of us who study these connections see again and again that where biodiversity is destroyed, ecosystems break down with unintended and disastrous consequences. In the eastern United States, humans hunting the gray wolf to extinction caused a chain reaction that likely led to the epidemic of Lyme disease that persists to this day. The devastating Indonesian tsunami of 2004 was made far more destructive because of the cutting of mangrove forests, which normally act as a shield, buffering the impact of storm waves. In the Line Islands in the central Pacific, the waters in overfished areas were filled with pathogens, including bacteria like Vibrio, which can cause cholera in humans. Bottom trawling the sea floor, clearing forest in the Amazon, and melting permafrost in the Arctic are all releasing tons and tons of carbon into our atmosphere. [Music]

And in Wuhan, China, a virus that would have dispersed itself naturally in a biodiverse environment instead made its way to humans, likely from bats, animals whose habitats have been systematically raided and destroyed for decades. These examples just scratch the surface of how humanity's reckless relationship with nature has had disastrous effects. My life has been dedicated to figuring out how we can have thriving natural ecosystems and resilient human populations together. What I found is nothing short of miraculous. Remember the desolate waters I explored in Costa Rica? Well, just 10 miles from the coast is an island called Isla del Caño. [Music]

The difference is stark, and it's no accident. [Music] Here, the waters are fully protected: no fishing to stress the ecosystem toward collapse. [Music] Natural checks and balances keep predator and prey in a sustainable balance. It's a strong, resilient, constantly regenerating environment. The abundance of marine life spills over invisible boundaries, creating more catch for local fishermen, food security for communities, and increased tourism revenue from world travelers who want to experience these treasures firsthand. This one truth is at the heart of my life's work: whereby biodiversity is allowed to flourish, healthy ecosystems thrive, and we all benefit. Protecting intact ecosystems works because it allows nature to do the hard work for us. Our natural world can be a sustainable, resilient engine of regeneration; we just need to give it some space. [Music]

Reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone National Park in the 1990s caused a positive cascade throughout the food web, leading to a return of plants and animals of all kinds, creating a more diverse and balanced ecosystem. During a cyclone in Mozambique in 2019, the Gorongosa National Park absorbed the rainwater equivalent of 800,000 Olympic swimming pools, protecting many populated areas from the worst of the flooding. [Music]

In the pristine southern Line Islands, giant clams are abundant. These incredible animals, which are overfished in much of the Pacific, are like the N95 masks of the coral reef lagoons. Like other marine animals, they filter bacteria and pathogens, including Vibrio, out of the water. [Music] And living wild animals in the wild, and their habitats intact, helps to keep viruses from arriving on our doorstep. [Music] So, on top of providing us with oxygen, food, carbon sequestration, recreation, and spiritual inspiration, nature is also shielding us from disease and natural disasters.

My team and I have spent over a decade bringing this message to world leaders and decision-makers who have the power to change policy and create protections for nature. One year after I came to Washington, D.C. to launch Pristine Seas with National Geographic, I found myself sitting in the White House as the President of the United States signed a proclamation creating the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monuments, one of the largest marine reserves in the world. I couldn't believe that our research, our images, our stories about that place helped to inform one of the most important ocean policy decisions in the history of the United States. But my next thought was, "We can do this again." Twelve years later, we've done this 22 times. We've helped to protect almost 6 million square kilometers of ocean, and we can do the same on the land. We must protect the critical wilderness areas we depend on. Our target is ambitious: 30 percent of the planet protected by 2030. But Pristine Seas has proven that thinking big can pay off.

I dream of the day we can all be in nature again, perhaps with a deeper understanding of its importance. It's not too much to say that if we protect nature, she will protect us as well. That's life in balance; that's why we need the wild. [Music] [Music] [Music]