David Attenborough’s voice has been a powerful guide for millions, educating audiences on the wonders of the natural world and the urgent need to protect it. His latest documentary, Ocean with David Attenborough, highlights the majesty and fragility of our ocean. The documentary is a breathtaking reminder of the deep connection between humanity and the ocean, while urging us to take action to safeguard these vital ecosystems. With a global Ocean Treaty on the horizon, this documentary calls for collective action to preserve the ocean that sustains life on Earth.
“This is the story of our ocean. And how we must write its next chapter together. For if we save the sea, we save our world. After a lifetime of filming our planet, I’m sure that nothing is more important.”
-David Attenborough
The powerful documentary film from Silverback Films and Open Planet Studios is set for release as a global cinema event from 8 May (2025), which also coincides with David Attenborough’s 99th birthday. The film will be available on streaming services globally on world oceans day on the 8th of June.
The film’s release is timed ahead of World Ocean Day (8 June 2025), June’s United Nations Ocean Conference 2025 where it will be screened (9 June – 13 June) in Nice, France, and midway through the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030). As world leaders decide the fate of our ocean, Ocean with David Attenborough will show why ocean recovery is vital for stabilising our climate and securing a healthier future for us all, and how marine protection – if immediately implemented – can help to turn the tide.
The Ocean’s Vital Role in Our Planet’s Health
Overfishing, plastic pollution, rising temperatures, and habitat destruction are pushing marine life to the brink. In The Ocean: A Journey with David Attenborough, viewers are invited to witness the wonders of the ocean, from its deepest trenches to its vibrant coral reefs. The film is not just a visual spectacle but also an urgent call for action. Attenborough’s narration, as always, blends awe with concern, urging us to recognise the ocean’s importance and the urgency of preserving it.
“My lifetime has coincided with the great age of ocean discovery. Over the last hundred years, scientists and explorers have revealed remarkable new species, epic migrations and dazzling, complex ecosystems beyond anything I could have imagined as a young man. In this film, we share some of those wonderful discoveries, uncover why our ocean is in such poor health, and, perhaps most importantly, show how it can be restored to health. This could be the moment of change. Nearly every country on Earth has just agreed, on paper, to achieve this bare minimum and protect a third of the ocean. Together, we now face the challenge of making it happen.”
-David Attenborough
Why the Global Ocean Treaty Matters
The Global Ocean Treaty is more than just an environmental issue—it is a matter of global responsibility. All waters of the ocean are interconnected, and its health directly affects all of us. Climate change, pollution and overfishing are pushing the ocean to the brink of collapse. Food security and the livelihoods of billions of people hang in the balance.
After years of campaigning, the first ever Global Ocean Treaty was passed at the UN in 2023, but governments now need to sign it into law, to make protected areas a reality at sea. Time is running out, and reaching this target will require a strong and urgent political response.
Australia has signed but not ratified the Global Ocean Treaty. See the list of countries that have signed and/or ratified the high seas treaty here. The new government must prioritise ratifying as a matter of urgency.
Greenpeace’s call for action is clear: to ensure the protection of 30% of the world’s ocean by 2030. We are pushing for at least 60 countries to ratify by the end of 2025 in order to support the creation of marine protected areas that are off-limits to destructive activities like deep-sea mining and industrial fishing.
In our own backyard, industrial fishing and pollution is putting immense strain on unique and diverse ecosystems. That’s why Greenpeace is campaigning to establish a marine sanctuary in the Tasman Sea.
Our beautiful blue backyard, the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand has complex topography and nutrient-rich currents in these areas that create ideal conditions for species like tuna, whales, seabirds, and ancient corals to thrive. Establishing a sanctuary here would not only safeguard endangered species, like the South Pacific humpback whale and several types of albatross, but also provide a habitat for all marine life to thrive.
The Global Ocean Treaty is an essential tool for protecting life in the high seas. By creating new sanctuaries we can protect the ocean for the future. Join Greenpeace in advocating for the Australian Government to be a leader in protecting the ocean.
Together, we can protect the ocean that sustains us all.
David Attenborough’s New Documentary: A Call for Action on the Global Ocean Treaty
Next week, diplomats from around the world will descend on Yerevan, Armenia, to negotiate a series of decisions under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
Between 19 and 30 October, 196 parties will gather to hammer out the precise wording of the dozens of legal texts that make up the decisions under the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the CBD.
This year’s summit is particularly significant, as it marks the halfway point between the agreement of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework and the deadline for achieving its targets.
The CBD has found that countries are currently not on track to meet 22 out of the framework’s 23 targets.
During the fortnight, delegates will also be negotiating decisions relating to the two supplemental protocols to the CBD: the Cartagena Protocol, which covers biosafety; and the Nagoya Protocol, which covers access and benefit-sharing for the use of genetic resources.
(The Cartagena and Nagoya Protocols, which are each governed by a “meeting of the parties”, or “MOP”, have fewer parties than the CBD as a whole, with 173 and 141, respectively.)
Carbon Brief is tracking the progress of countries towards consensus on dozens of negotiating texts using the interactive table below.
The tracker includes texts from the COP, as well as the MOPs for the Cartagena and Nagoya protocols. It also includes draft decisions from the most recent subsidiary body meetings, as these form the starting point for the negotiations in Yerevan.
The CBD has three subsidiary bodies: the subsidiary body on scientific, technical and technological advice (SBSTTA), the subsidiary body on implementation (SBI) and the subsidiary body on article 8(j) and other provisions (SB8J).
SB8J focuses on issues related to the Indigenous peoples and local communities. It was established at COP16 in Cali, Colombia, in 2024.
The first two columns of the interactive tracker list the topic of each agenda item and the relevant body, with subsequent columns including dates, page counts and links to the original documents.
The table is searchable and can be sorted using the arrows in the header.
Areas of disagreement in UN draft texts are denoted by square brackets. Counting the brackets in a particular iteration of a text therefore gives a sense of how far parties are from reaching consensus.
The bracket column is colour-coded, with dark green indicating a low number of brackets and red indicating a high number of brackets remaining.
Texts can also present parties with choices using “options” or alternatives (“alt”), which are counted together in the sixth column of the table.
The key discussions in Yerevan will centre around two agenda items in particular. The first is the global review, which will assess progress towards the GBF and make recommendations for accelerating action.
The second is finance, which can be separated into two parts: resource mobilisation and the financial mechanism. On resource mobilisation, biodiverse global south countries are likely to push for an increased amount of international finance for conservation.
Disagreement over the creation of the financial mechanism led to the suspension of COP16 in Cali in October 2024, as parties failed to find agreement on the mobilisation of finance before the end of the summit.
Global south countries want the establishment of a separate financial mechanism under the control of the CBD; global north countries largely prefer to maintain the existing mechanism, which sits under the Global Environment Facility.
At the resumed session of COP16 in Rome in early 2025, countries agreed on a roadmap that would lead to the establishment of a permanent mechanism.
related
Analysis: Lula presidency saved at least 20,000km2 of Brazilian Amazon since 2022
Why land-use emissions have fallen by a third this century – in six charts
Analysis: 84% of nations miss deadline to identify ‘nature-harming’ subsidies by 2025
UK withdraws millions in funding from world’s second-largest rainforest in Congo
The post Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Interactive: Tracking negotiating texts at the COP17 biodiversity summit
A beacon of love
On an outer island of Fiji, two thousand nautical miles from Sydney, is a shining light of hope and resilience for our troubled world.
The island of Kioa is home to a Tuvaluan community who migrated from their atoll of Vaitupu in the late 1940s. It is a land of warm hearts, big smiles, and deep cultural roots; a place where the sound of a conch still summons the island together, where islanders paddle out to fish in carved outrigger canoes, and healthy happy children walk barefoot to school.
Here, culture is life. Kioans live sustainably through their traditional knowledge and practices. The island is alive with song, dance and the rhythms of a life tied to the tides, the winds, and the seasons.
Facing the future
Greenpeace has been lucky to have a relationship with Kioa for a number of years now, and we are continually learning from this remarkable community.
Last week, as part of our Voyaging Oceania project, we returned to the island. Our purpose was twofold —- to carry messages from the island to leaders gathering in Nadi this week for the Pacific Pre-COP, and to support the Kioa community in their efforts to improve water security for the island.
Unlike Tuvalu itself, with its eight atolls, Kioa is a mountainous, forested and richly fertile island. It will remain habitable far into the future. Kioans did not initially migrate from Vaitupu due to climate change, but the move was prophetic. They now have a lifeboat.
However, even Kioa faces challenges on our rapidly warming planet, in particular when it comes to water. Climate change is shifting once reliable rainfall patterns. On top of this, the island is already feeling the effect of this year’s intensifying El Niño event, which for Fiji means reduced rainfall and prolonged dry spells.
Right now, fresh water has to be carefully rationed, and is only available for a few hours a day. During last week’s visit aboard our campaigning ship Oceania, Greenpeace was privileged to work with the Kioa community on a new solar-powered water distribution project for the island.
Designed and led by the island, the project involves using a solar pump to move water from a reliable source to a storage tank and then using gravity to distribute the water around the village.
It was a lesson in how local knowledge and ingenuity can be the backbone of today’s climate solutions. To build a dam around the source, the local community knew the exact spot where they could gather gravel at low tide to mix with the cement. They took only what was needed, knowing that all resources must be carefully conserved. Kioa has no roads and no machinery, and it was an all-of-island effort to carry the materials up to the project site, including many heavy bags of sand and rock.
Such projects truly bring to life the vision of a resilient, locally-led, fossil fuel free Pacific.