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©XL CATLIN SEAVIEW SURVEY/THE OCEAN AGENCY/
RICHARD VEVERS
Before and after images show coral bleaching at American Samoa between December 2014 and February 2015 (left) and the
overgrowth of bleached coral by algae at Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef between March and May 2016 (right).
Ƒ©THE OCEAN AGENCY/XL CATLIN SEAVIEW SURVEY/
RICHARD VEVERS AND CHRISTOPHE BAILHACHE
challenging about the dive, but we were with a bunch
of tourists, and I could see it was an unhealthy dive
site — really mediocre. But some of the people in the
group had just gotten certified and were just ecstatic.
So for me it was a depressing recognition of a changing
baseline. Things are changing so much, the sadness
I felt was less about the dive itself and more about
witnessing new divers who might never get to see how
beautiful the underwater world can be or once was.
What were the most fun, healthy dives you got to do?
Cuba was amazing, and the southern parts of the
GBR were still healthy and magical — very different
from our sites off Lizard Island to the north. The
southern GBR was a glimpse into, you know, “so THIS
is what it’s supposed to look like.” Seeing the threedimensional
structure, the verticality, was amazing.
The reef really is like a city.
But even at some of those sites, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg,
one of the film’s lead scientists who has studied the GBR
since the 1980s, said, “No, this is a B+.”
There’s that changing baseline. And what about the
diving at Lizard Island?
Lizard Island was a great place to work. The facilities
were amazing, and we could take out the boat ourselves.
We were often diving in shallow water, getting tossed
around by the current. The water was too warm, and the
coral was bleaching, dying and rotting. Diving among its
corpses was not fun, but we were finally in the right place
at the right time, with all our gear, to capture the story.
What did you learn about the ocean from this
experience?
The biggest eye-opener was that the oceans are
absorbing more than 90 percent of the heat from
climate change, which is affecting not just coral reefs but
ecosystems throughout the ocean. The Earth’s surface
would be about 122°F if the ocean were not absorbing all
that heat. That has been the biggest wakeup call to me.
I also realized that most people who go scuba diving
recreationally are taken to the healthiest places, so we
saw a side of the oceans that a lot of people — and
even a lot of divers — have not seen.
Speaking of education, who was one of your best
teachers during this process?
Ocean scientist Ruth Gates. She could explain how corals
work — how they seem simple but are sophisticated in
a quiet way. Richard was blown away by watching coral
polyps go about their business under her microscopes.
We got to see them as animals working symbiotically
with plants, creating this underwater world.
Why should people care about what’s going on with
coral reefs?
In many ways, this is not even about coral reefs
anymore. Coral reefs are the current ecosystem being
devastated, but if we don’t address this problem now,
we are going to continue to lose whole ecosystems. We
are beyond losing individual species.
Our actions on this planet are fundamentally shifting
the stability of the systems we depend on: where we grow
our food, where we get our water, where we live. All of that
is in jeopardy because of changes we are inflicting upon
the planet right now. It’s not a matter of protecting nature
for nature’s sake. If we hope to keep human civilization
functioning, we need to figure out how to let the planet
gain some stability and balance back. Without that, we will
see massive human suffering in the coming decades.
Divers have a unique opportunity to see coral reefs
bleaching and help spread awareness. AD
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