“As far as jaw-dropping imagery goes, The Last Reef is hard to beat as it effectively parallels behaviour in these heavily populated “cities beneath the sea” with bustling urban centres – notably New York, captured with dazzling time-lapse photography.”

“What differentiates The Last Reef, even this non-3D version, is D.J. Roller’s brilliantly rendered underwater macro footage of iridescent corals and sea creatures that could be aliens in sci-fi movies. Highlights include its up-close-and-personal clouds of jellyfish, undulating wafer-thin flatworms, stingrays, giant clams and that amazing, eye-popping nudibranch.”

“The film’s hypnotic score composed by Cresswell and McNicholas at times recalls a Phillip Glass score in overdrive. It brilliantly heightens the drama, driving home the message that changes in human behaviour can alter this undersea fate.”

Read Michael D.Reid’s whole review on the Times Colonist site.

Palau’s Rock Islands Southern Lagoon has recently made UNESCO’s World Heritage List. This is especially poignant for The Last Reef, since most of the films underwater coral reef sequences and many of the timelapse sequences were shot in Palau, one of the most biologically diverse areas on the planet, and yet, one of the most threatened.

UNESCO notes the lagoon “covers 100,200 ha and includes 445 uninhabited limestone islands of volcanic origin. Many of them display unique mushroom-like shapes in turquoise lagoons surrounded by coral reefs. The aesthetic beauty of the site is heightened by a complex reef system featuring over 385 coral species and different types of habitat. They sustain a large diversity of plants, birds and marine life including dugong and at least thirteen shark species. The site harbours the highest concentration of marine lakes anywhere”.

This area has long been protected by the Palauan government, seen as the crown jewel of the archipelago.

The decision was made at a meeting in St Petersburg, Russia by the World Heritage Committee, where they apparently discussed Palau’s “wow” factor…

You can read more about UNESCO’s take on the islands here

You can read more about the awards here…

“Caribbean coral reefs – which make up one of the world’s most colourful, vivid and productive ecosystems – are on the verge of collapse, with less than 10% of the reef area showing live coral cover.”

Carl Gustaf Lundin, director of the global marine and polar programme at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said: “The major causes of coral decline are well known and include overfishing, pollution, disease and bleaching caused by rising temperatures resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. Looking forward, there is an urgent need to immediately and drastically reduce all human impacts [in the area] if coral reefs and the vitally important fisheries that depend on them are to survive in the decades to come.”

It emphasises the ecological and economic significance of reef collapse, and adds to the ever increasing call for action to prevent the loss of coral reefs globally.

“Last year, scientists estimated that 75% of the Caribbean’s coral reefs were in danger, along with 95% of those in south-east Asia. That research, from the World Resources Institute, predicted that by 2050 virtually all of the world’s coral reefs would be in danger.”

Read the entire article here and download the report here.

Read the full article here.

“IT’S past time to tell the truth about the state of the world’s coral reefs, the nurseries of tropical coastal fish stocks. They have become zombie ecosystems, neither dead nor truly alive in any functional sense, and on a trajectory to collapse within a human generation. There will be remnants here and there, but the global coral reef ecosystem — with its storehouse of biodiversity and fisheries supporting millions of the world’s poor — will cease to be.”

He accuses environmentalists, scientists and governments of “false hope”: he has a negative view of the state of the worlds reefs and their prospects of recovery:

“Overfishing, ocean acidification and pollution have two features in common. First, they are accelerating. They are growing broadly in line with global economic growth, so they can double in size every couple of decades. Second, they have extreme inertia — there is no real prospect of changing their trajectories in less than 20 to 50 years. In short, these forces are unstoppable and irreversible.”

Mr Bradbury argues we should be preparing for the worst, and the negative impact the loss of reefs will have upon “ hundreds of millions of people in poor, tropical countries like Indonesia and the Philippines who depend on coral reefs for food.”, not to mention tropical tourism and the ultimate knock on effects of the loss of biodiversity.

Read the entire article here.

Scientists Declare State of Emergency for World’s Coral Reefs

“CAIRNS, Australia, Jul 10 2012 (IPS) - Coral reef scientists urged local and national governments to take action to save the world’s coral reefs and said they’d be “on call 24/7″ to assist politicians and officials.

Without global action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and greatly improve local protection, most of the world’s coral reefs will be devastated and the benefits they provide billions of people will be lost in the coming decades, scientists warned at the opening of 12th International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS) in Cairns, Australia.”

Read more of this article here

Blue, a “global film and conservation event” is taking place this year in Monterey Bay, Sep 24-30, and features a healthy selection of ocean oriented movies from around the world; this year the festival also honours James Cameron with a lifetime achievement in ocean film-making award…

Read more about the festival here…

Of particular interest to us is his chapter on Ocean Acidification: “Corrosive Seas”. He describes a moment at a meeting to discuss climate change in 1998 when Joanie Keyplas, an American reef expert, realise that by the end of the 21st century, seawater would be too corrosive to sustain coral reefs: “she excused herself and ran to the bathroom to be sick”. A Roland Emmerich disaster movie moment if ever there was one…

Callum also points out that acidification is a global problem and not exclusively a threat to tropical reefs: oyster farms off the coast of Oregon have shown how they can easily be disrupted by ph change, and the swarms of pteropods in the Arctic, fast food for whales, cod, salmon are particularly vulnerable to acidity.

Callum Roberts is a great advocate for preserving the environments that help refurbish the ocean, such as Marine Protected Areas, proven time and again to help replenish fish populations. Specifically regarding acidification:  ”It has been estimated” he writes, “that every year healthy  salt marshes, mangroves and seagrass beds collectively remove carbon dioxide equivalent to half the emissions of the world transport network… so if you can do just one thing, protect the salt marshes and mangrove swamps!”

You can buy “Ocean of Life” in bookshops, from Penguin, on Amazon or in the iBookstore… go get it…