Ocean’s 11

On his second day at Pangulasian Island Resort, filmmaker and Good Planet Foundation founder Yann Arthus-Bertrand boarded a helicopter and flew over El Nido, Palawan.

He was suffering from jet lag and didn’t want to leave his villa but there are two things Yann can never resist: aerial photography and the ocean.

For an hour and a half, his pilot flew him between the limestone cliffs of El Nido, a managed resource protected area 420 kilometers from Manila and 238 kilometers from provincial capital Puerto Princesa.

He shot the poblacion with its small lodges and houses hugging the cliffs, which is perhaps the only place in El Nido that will remind you that even the remotest places get discovered soon enough.

He filmed deserted beaches, mangroves and forests, the exclusive island resort Pangulasian and tiny fishing communities, boats on the water, a girl drying fish.

You’ve heard often enough how El Nido is so beautiful with its towering cliffs, how the islands are small and deserted, but you are never really prepared just how shockingly blue and at turns green and clear the water is.

In a way, it made perfect sense for a film about the destruction of the world’s oceans to hold its Philippine premiere in El Nido, as if to say — this is how we should manage, conserve and care for our waters.

Omega executives flew from Switzerland along with Yann to show Planet Ocean, a 90-minute documentary directed by Yann and Michael Pitiot, narrated by actor Josh Duhamel, and funded by luxury watchmaker Omega.

Also in El Nido for that premiere weekend was Lucerne Group managing director Emerson Yao, the exclusive distributor of Omega in the Philippines; local journalists and media from Japan and China.

Planet Ocean’s message is clear: We must protect the world’s oceans because our own survival depends on them.  

Yann is very passionate about his film — just as he is generous. The film is free of copyrights. It can be shown and distributed for free — by NGOs, by TV stations, by corporations and governments — because Yann wants his message to be spread. Also, because the film is a recipient of this same generosity from outstanding underwater cinematographers who have given their work gratis to be used in this documentary.

Jean Pascal-Perret, Omega vice president for communication and PR, says the budget for Planet Ocean was 2 million Swiss francs (or 1.6 million euros), a modest sum realty (one can only imagine the logistics and cost of shooting underwater in various parts of the globe, from Asia to South America, Africa and Europe) and this is only because 50 percent of the film’s images were given for free by a number of filmmakers.

Yann adds, “Some shots would have been very expensive but they gave them to me to use because they believe this movie could change people’s minds. Our movie’s goal is not to make money but to organize action.”

Here are more facts you should know about our oceans, our planet, and Planet Ocean.

1.Water is life. Seventy-percent of the earth is covered by oceans and  “seventy percent of the earth’s oxygen comes from phytoplankton. Our oceans renew the oxygen in the air. Phytoplankton, small organisms living in suspension near the surface of the water, produce oxygen and recycle carbon dioxide in the process of photosynthesis.” 

2. Yann Arthus-Bertrand first showed Planet Ocean in June 2012 at the Rio+20 conference. He credits a team of oceanographers, filmmakers, researchers and marine biologists from various countries as collaborators. The film was shot “from all corners of the oceans” by aerial and underwater cameramen. The images took “countless hours of filming and often weeks of reflection and preparation.”

3. The majority of the world’s coral reefs are between 5,000 and 10,000 years old. “Coral reefs can be found in both warm and cold seas, for example around Britain and Scandinavia. The Great Barrier Reef runs for 2,000 kilometers along the east coast of Australia and is the largest reef in the world.” Today, more than 20 percent of the world’s coral reefs have disappeared.

4. The planet’s oceans serve mankind. “Fish provides more than 15 percent of the animal protein needs of more than 2.9 billion people.” The oceans not only provide food, but also provide a route for food to be transported around the world with “90 percent of goods produced and consumed in the world transported by sea.”

5. The ocean does not have infinite resources. Overfishing is depleting the oceans’ stocks. “Seventy percent of commercial species of fish have already been fished to a maximum or beyond their reproductive capacity. In 2008, 4.2 millions tons of tuna were drawn out of the seas. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, five out of eight species of tuna are endangered. Populations of swordfish, cod and shark have decreased by 90 percent. The disappearance of large predators is directly threatening the balance of ecosystems.”

6. “Deep-sea trawling is equivalent to chopping down an entire forest.” Deep-sea trawlers destroy 1,500 square kilometers of the seabed each day — 15 times the area of Paris.” Not a year or a month, but each day.

7. The rarer a species of fish gets, the higher its price on the market. “A red tuna weighing 269 kilos was bought for 571,000 euros by a Japanese restaurateur. This large fish may soon cost more than a luxury car.”    

8. Plastic takes from 100 to 1,000 years to biodegrade. And we’re throwing them into the oceans mindlessly. “Each year, 6.5 kilos of plastic waste are thrown into the oceans. Plastic is threatening the survival of marine species.”

9. The planet is melting. “About 35 percent of Arctic ice has melted since 1992. Arctic ice plays an essential role in regulating climate and in preserving ocean currents, yet summer ice could disappear completely within 10 to 15 years.”

10. Rising sea levels are threatening populations. “Sea levels could rise by up to one meter by 2100…This phenomenon is putting whole populations at risk, in particular in Bangladesh, where 17 million people live less than one meter above sea level.”

11. There is no product placement of Omega in this documentary. Jean Pascal-Perret says he is often asked why Omega funded an activist film and his answer is simple: One, because Omega has a link with the ocean for nearly a hundred years. In 1932, it released the first diver’s watch (then a mere 14 meters, now its Seamaster range can go as deep as 600 meters underwater). And second is a “personal reason —Yann is my hero. He knows how to touch your heart. I’m a strong believer that one of the keys to success is to be able share — your doubts, failures, and also your success. When you share, it makes you richer. This is true for companies as well.”