The last Ocean Movie
Latest Ocean MovieLast ocean on iTunes
Wonderfully filmed and instructive documentation about one of the last untouched marine environments on earth - the Ross Sea, off the Antarctic coastline. Breathtaking photographs above and below the sea and a lot of information about the threat to the Ross Sea from merchant fishery for what is basically a luxurious commodity, the Antarctic toothfish, which is falsely sold as Chilean sea bass.
It really must be disseminated so that policy-makers authorise the creation of a maritime reserve and safeguard this astonishing place for coming generation. Uh- and stay away from the Chilean sea bass like the pestilence!
Film review: Last ocean is a call to act.
The Last Ocean, the new film by director Peter Young, is one of those movies that makes you upset. Ross Sea is the southernmost part of the world's ocean. Antarctic seas are also considered the last piece of untouched naval ecosystems on the globe, the last place on earth where the contact and spoilage of humanity's finger can be felt.
As the fishermen, first from New Zealand, then from other countries, searched for the native toothfish populations - better known as Chilean sea bass - that were overexploited almost everywhere in the globe, the effects were immediate and wide-spread. Like the other wildlife documentations you have seen, The Last Ocean is similar in structure.
Whilst Antarctica as a part of the Global Commons is still a continental region, this global agreement does not cover the world' s peripheral seas. The outcome is that the water is a level playing field. All you see is just breathtaking, from the animal world' s field to the crystalline water under the icy bag, the photographs in the movie are truly amazing.
Because The Last Ocean's main emphasis is on the fisheries sector, Antarctic toothfish gets the most display work. As one of the most important carnivores in their diet, relatively little is known about this species, its spawning habitat, how often and how many young animals it feed. They have antifreeze in their hemoglobin, they breathe in their diet, and their heart beats as little as possible every 10 seconds.
Fisheries companies entering a new area use an essential math formula to find out the proportion of a populations they can take out while remaining within the technical "conservation" range. In this case, the issue is that the numbers do not match because so little is known about the dental fish, especially over their lifecycle.
Populations are being depleted, the whole nutritional value of both the top and bottom of the supply chains is being disrupted and the lack of them has a major influence on the local ecosystems. Scholars and explorers need to be allowed to take a pen ashore, but boats depart with tens of thousand of tonnes of them.
We also have environmental concern, not to speak of the security risks associated with shipping to the most dangerous and insulated part of the globe. There' s a key factor why The Last Ocean doesn't seem self-righteous, which prevents the movie from becoming completely intoxicated. Nearly everyone who has been part of the opening-up of water for global fisheries acknowledges in front of the cameras how poorly the efforts have been directed and recognises the importance of conserving this last untouched part of our globe.
These include civil servants, the boss of the New Zealand fisheries sector and the Manhattan-based cook, who made toothfish popular as a staple diet, leading to global saturation. He is the one who re-named him "Chilean sea bass", which does sound more appetising than toothfish, I admit. Whilst so many movies of this kind end in a desolate touch, like we're all fucked, The Last Ocean is more promising that an agreement can be made.
Lawmaking is advancing, science unions are presenting their research and results on a regular basis to relevant committees, and nature protection is gaining speed every year. If a giant business like Safeway - a business that usually doesn't care about the environment or ethical issues when it comes to the way it sells goods - ceases to transport something, you know that there are some serious misgivings about the game.
But The Last Ocean does the festivals laps - I saw it as part of the Seattle International Film Festival's scientific programme - but it's also available to broadcast from various ministries.