Super Reefs (Short Film) | Pristine Seas | National Geographic Society

Thank you. Can you see that sunrise? [Music]

Foreign. [Music]

Ly powerful memory, vivid memory, memory of the most beautiful and healthy pristine coral reef. Foreign.

That, you know, it took a year to prepare for this expedition, but actually, it's taking us 12 years to be, to be 12 years. It's like a family reunion, and, you know, being back with my friends in the same place is very special. Great help to me. There was a before and after 2008. In 2008, I went to National Geographic and proposed this idea: let's go to the wildest place in the ocean and help to protect them before it's too late. And that's how Pristencies was born. The first explanation we did was the Southern Line Islands in 2009, 12 years ago.

So all of a sudden, you are offered an incredible opportunity to visit probably one of the most pristine places left on the planet. What's not to like? And the first dive, we found this incredible coral reef. In some places, 90 percent of the bottom was covered by lifecore. [Music] Not only the coral was spectacular, but so many more fish including quite a bit of sharks. This place is so beautiful. I remember coming out of the first dive and saying this is the best dive I've done in my life.

So for us, it was like we got in a time machine and went back 500 years and found a world that nobody had seen before. [Music] We found a world so pristine that it completely shifted our understanding of what coral reefs look like. [Music] I immediately thought, wow, how many places are left like this? This is rare. This is unique. We need to make sure that these places are protected forever.

We work with the government of Kiribati to ensure that 12 miles around the islands would be closed to fishing forever. But every number of years, the Pacific Ocean gets warmer than usual for a few weeks. That's what's called El Niño events. In 2015 and 16, there was a warming event that took the number of weeks above the threshold not four or five, but to 16. It was the most massive warming event that we have ever recorded. Corals are very delicate animals; if they go above a certain temperature, they die. Our friends from Scripps returned in 2017 to the Sutherland Islands, and what they found was really heartbreaking.

Those reefs had lost half of the corals. Even the most pristine coral reefs in the world with that huge abundance of fish were not able to cope with 16 weeks of temperatures far above average. [Music] Now we're coming five years later to see if the reef, that pristine, most pristine reef in the world, has been able to bounce back. So it was really important when we came back to see if that loss was something I was gonna have to mourn for the rest of my life or to see if this location could rebuild.

[Applause] [Music] [Music] From the surface to as far as I could see, [Music] layers and layers of coral placed intact. [Music] And my first thought was yes, the reef is resilient. This reef has come back! [Music] I felt the same thing as when I first dove here in this clear water, like revisiting old memories. [Music] What a life! The most amazing reef I have seen! [Music] Actually, it's better than I remembered. This is one of the most beautiful places on the entire planet! [Music]

I talk to my friends that work on coral recruitment, and they said, okay, well maybe in 20 years you'll have a reef back. Yeah, this is four years. No, I completely agree. It's amazing getting imagery that we saw in 2013, 2017, 2021. If we can't make a case that islands won't grow back fast from those data, we need to turn in our degrees.

Yeah, we had a good opportunity to show some of the data from the Southern Line Islands at an international meeting of coral reef scientists. When I showed the final imagery of what we saw in 2021, I saw people's jaws drop. Had we seen some initial coral growth, I think we would have been happy. [Music] See that our expectations are as many corals now as there were before the warming event, and actually, more of the bottom is covered by coral than when we first came here in 2009.

Foreign. Based on all the data we have, I think we have a pretty good answer why the corals in the Line Islands are so resilient. It is because of the protection. The fact that there is no fishing there has allowed the fish to reach abundances that are off the charts. All these fish are grazing, grazing, grazing all day long everywhere. They prevent the algae, the seaweed from overgrowing the dead corals, so they keep the reef clean, allowing the corals to come back.

We [Music] all felt such relief. Working with our partners and local communities, Pristine Seas is helping to turn the tide for ocean protection. But our work is not done yet. The [Music] urgency to protect coral reefs around the world is greater than ever. And what these reefs are telling us loud and clear is that we need to preserve the pristine reefs that are left, and we need to protect many of the reefs so they can come back like we have seen here in the Sutherland Islands. [Music]

Thank you.

Foreign. [Music]