Original subtitles

♪♪ Teach your children well ♪♪

♪♪ Their father's hell did slowly go by ♪♪

♪♪ Don't you ever ask them why ♪♪

♪♪ if they told you, you would cry ♪♪

♪♪ So just look at them and sigh ♪♪

♪♪ I know they love you ♪♪

♪♪ Teach your children well ♪♪

♪♪ and know they love you ♪♪

The South Pacific

lagoons that hand to paradise

magnificent coral reefs

the tears on the light, the dreaming corners of our minds

This is the world as we wish as could always be

In this great corner of life

thousands of colorful characters coexist

Diversity strengthens coral reef

The more species

the more survival systems

Coral reefs have been going strong for sixteen million years

Some corals sway like flowers in the breeze

others masquerade the stones

but all corals are animals

This underwater playgrounds are built by hard corals

which produce lime stone and turn it into homes

Stacked one atop the other

millions of coral homes

gradually form a gigantic reef

How wonderful that the largest living structures on Earth

are built by tiny animals

Coral reefs protect nearly all tropical coasts

standing between islanders' homes and violent seas

When we're injured

doctors use calcium carbonate from coral

to mend our broken bones

When we're sick

chemical compounds from the reef

may restore our health

No place on earth

holds greater potential for medical cures

Reefs feed us

over three hundred million people

rely on fish from reefs

For Pacific islanders like me

our coral reefs are as necessary as the air we breath

Rusi Vulakoro, a native of Fiji

has always lived close to the sea

For centuries

my ancestors were careful not to overfish

so our reef was healthy

But this year

something happened

something terrible

A black of death settled over the reef

What was killing our reef?

I made up my mind to find some answers

I decided to reach out to

some of my dive partners around the world

Howard and Michelle Hall

have spent thirty years exploring and filming reefs

Their underwater photography is world known

When Howard and Michelle got Rusi's message

they were on the mountains

far from the reefs they love

All during that flight I kept wondering

what we could do to help Rusi

Then I realized that

our friend Richard Pyle might know what to do

He is a marine biologist

Across the world

we have Red sea, east Africa, Maldives, Philippines

We're seeing this kind of problems showing up

unprecedent rates

Richard showed us how coral reefs dying

at alarming rate all around the world

Ocean warming is the major cause

Richard urged us to document coral reefs on film for science

before they disappear

We knew the IMAX camera with its credible clarity

was the best way to do this

Our mission was clear

bring back images that would give scientists insides

and why Rusi's reef was dying

We needed to compare Rusi's reef

to other reefs all across the South Pacific

starting with the largest of them all

The Great Barrier Reef

The prospect of diving coral reef

all across the South Pacific

was a bit like a dream come true

We would make hundreds of dives

and some of these would be deeper and more dangerous

than anything we have done before

It would be a most important expedition

in our 30 years' diving together

Parts of the Great Barrier Reef

had been protected from overfishing for two decades

The first goal of this ten-month expedition

was to see how well that protection really worked

When I first dove here 22 years ago

these giant clams were not here

They've been long fished out by commercial fishmen

Today we've seen 12 giant clams

That's a great sign

That means this reef is bouncing back

A local marine biologist named Tracey Medway

let us to the giant potato cod

They're called potato cut

because they have these splash potato shape

marking on the sides

Through out most of the South Pacific

the really large fish have been wiped up by fishmen

Potato cod thrive here, and because of the laws that protect them

This vegetarian convectangs protect the reef

neighboring away seaweeds that smudged the corals

If too many of these kinds of fish are removed

corals will die

That's why overfishing destroys reefs

We often don't realize

how two species benefit each other

until one of them disappears

Just as the fish protect the reef

the coral offers homes and hiding places for the fish

anything from a simple shack

to a custom dream home

♪♪ I'll light the fire ♪♪

♪♪ You place the flowers in the vase ♪♪

♪♪ that you bought today ♪♪

Gobies often share a home with boodles of shrimp

Whenever he ventures out of the burrow

the shrimp keeps at least one antenna on the goby

The goby gets a unpackable burrow to live in

without lifting a fin

and the very near-sighted shrimp gets a bodyguard

With flick of its tale

the goby warns the shrimp of approaching predators

♪♪ Our house is very very fine house ♪♪

♪♪ with two cats in the yard ♪♪

♪♪ Life used to be so hard ♪♪

♪♪ Now everything is easy ♪♪

♪♪ 'Cause of you ♪♪

♪♪ I'll light the fire ♪♪

♪♪ While you place the flowers in the vase ♪♪

♪♪ that you bought ♪♪

This hundred year old coral

makes a nice dinner's office

for potato cod

A small fish

a cleaner ras

swims right into the cod's mouth

to feed and parasites

The cods gets grunt

and the ras gets dinner

Partnerships like this seem to require mutual trust

lots of trust

Cat Holloway, a coral researcher

joined Michelle to study interest species communication

♪♪ So we change partners ♪♪

♪♪ Time to change partners ♪♪

♪♪ We must change partners ♪♪

I was afraid I was gonna hallen

maybe swollen it

but I didn't

It just trig and pinch a little bit

I was studying animal behavior for so many years

This was

this was different

This was a chance for meet it

actually be part of it

Cooperation between species sustains live here

but sometimes it's almost invisible

The corals' most important partners

are tiny microscopic algae

that actually live inside the coral animal tissues

This helper algae use sunlight to produce sugar

the primary food source

that give corals the energy to build reefs

Most corals cannot survive without helper algae

But worldwide

abnoramly warm sea water

theatens this partnership

Time-up photography can show us how

in just one week

that changed 2 degree centigrade drives the algae out

Without its main food source

the coral bleaches ghostly white

If the algae don't return

the coral starves

Here in Australia we went to some places

that we've been to 20 years before

and our surprise is to see that

some of the reefs are so damaged because of ocean warming

Part of Australian survey gave us a baseline

for understanding what was going wrong

at Rusi's reef

2000 miles away in Fiji

Got out of town on a boat

Goin' to Southern islands

Sailing a reach

Before a followin' sea

She was makin' for the trades

On the outside

And the downhill run

To Papeete

I have been around the world

Looking you

Lookin' for that woman/girl

Who knows you

Who knows love can endure

when we got to Fiji

it didn't take five minutes to reconnect with Rusi

Howard made me smile again

Michelle and I were eager to help Rusi

but first

we had to pay our respects to local tradition

Before outsiders can direct my home island

the elders must grant permission

My people have always limited fishing

This tradition of reef conservation

has worked well for centuries

till now

First I wanted Howard to see village reef

as it used to be

The reef looked great with plenty of small fish

but we didn't see nearly as many big fish

as we did in Australia

and that worried me

But time had come

I took Howard and Michelle further down the reef

I wonder where all the animal has gone

These reefs are dying

and all just makes me very sad

Seeing so much of this reef destroyed

we realized that

Rusi's reef may be what all coral reefs look like

in 30 years

Our reef used to be home to so many creatures

but now they're almost all gone

After seeing all these destruction though

I saw an octopus

Octopus is made like a tent with the body

They put out their eight arms and

actually traps shrimps and crab that live on the reef

Here up it's to figure out

how to survive

Not many reef tolerates to do that

For islanders survive by fishing

the death of the reef has really hit us hard

especially when you have children to feed

But what kill Rusi's reef?

Foreign fishing fleets have overfished this waters

and monitors tell us that

the ocean is 2 degrees warmer than normal

I found more bleached coral and no big fish

but I had a hunch that

ocean warming and overfishing

were not the only problems

10 miles inland

when tropical rain forests were cut down

the river turned muddy with silt

Two rivers merge

One with logging upstream

one without

There's only one place for all that settlement to go

At the mouth of the river

silt blocks the sun light

that the coral needs for growth

Rusi's reef had been hit

by a combination of stresses

ocean warming, overfishing and siltation

Corals may fight off one threat

but three at once proved too much

Now I understood the problem better

but what could I do

Howard thougt a healthier reef

might give us some answers

We set course for another island

There we joined up with Jean-Michel Cousteau

who is the son of the legendary explorer

Jean-Michel comes to Fiji every year

to help marine biologists

like Maria Joao Rodriguez

monitor coral reefs

We guided Howard and Michelle to a nearby reef

where siltation is not a problem

thanks to mangrove trees

Their roots trap the silt

protecting the reefs

Many fishes use mangroves

as nursery to protect the young

My fellow Fijians

have set aside this beneficial mangroves

as part of marine preserve

making the reef offshore a wonder land

healthy, beautiful and strong

This is the way I want my reef to be

Tropical coral reefs are found worldwide

Fiji is the soft coral capital of the world

Corals are beautiful

but they are also beneficial

Chemical compounds from coral reefs

have been reproduced in the lab

to provide relief from crownic pain

ease child birth

and even extend the life of AIDS patients

Corals share their food

in fact many of them share the same stomach

When the current picks up speed

time lab photograph shows

how these soft corals inflate like balloons

to trap passing morshals

On a healthy reef like this

you see so many different creatures

We prefer not to approach these animals

it's better they come to us

This distant cousin of the cobra

can kill a person with its venom in a matter of minutes

but they rarely bite humans

Michelle is counting on it

We learn a lot of outer reef from its animals

and so do the children

There is more to the reef than meets the eye

Teach your children well

Their father's hell did slowly go by

Observation is the first step in science

Who would notice

that yellow dancing fish got their tiny eggs

before they hatch

All that the sea cucumber feed is waste

leaving the reef cleaner for all

Some of the finest marine biologists are Fijians

We could ever expect scientists now mixed

Don't you ever ask them why

if they told you, you would cry

So just look at them and sigh

I know they love you

We've learned that we don't inherit the earth

from our parents

we borrow it from our children

Children love this spot fish they've never seen before

that same through of discovery drives many scientists

like Richard Pyle

I catch little fish, little fish for science

Richard Pyle calls himself a fish nut

He studies fish on the deepest parts of coral reefs

the deeper down we go on the coral reef

the less we know

I wanna find out what lives there

You can't get a true picture of coral reef

if you only look at part of it

But deep dives could be really dangerous

Even using special breathing devices

we could still get a fatal disease

called "the bans"

I nearly lost Howard on a deep dive

only two months ago

He had a bad case of "the bans"

it could have killed him

To stop the progression of the illness

I began breathing pure oxygen

but it didn't seem to help

I was losing all feeling in my right leg

One of the terrify moments for me

was actually seeing him stumble

I just thought it can't be happening

Michelle rushed Howard to the hospital

hoping the specially pressurized chamber

might hold the illness

and save his life

Thank god for the communication system

because at least then I could talk to him

Howard survived

but his close call was on my mind that

we prepare for the dive to the 350 feet

The next day on the deep dive

Howard and Richard would face pressures

nearly 12 times greater than the normal

But they're expert divers

and there's much to learn by exploring regions

where so little is known

Support divers attach safety tanks to a life line

every 50 feet

Into the darkness

Soon you'll be sinking

What are you doing

What can you be thinking

All of your friends

trying to warn you

That some of your demons

Are trying to drag you

Away

Into the darkness

Into the darkness

Away

Roger, 100 feet

As we descent

too much oxygen is bad

too little is worst

both can kill you

OK

The safety divers go down as far as he can and stop

After that

we are on our own

As we drop down the reef wall

it gets darker and colder

and in a way we are going back in time

At 200 feet

we pass lime stone deposited the lay down

20,000 years ago

back when this was the top of the reef

At 350 feet

we enter the twilight zone

It's sort of spooky but wonderful

to look around the reef that

no one has ever layed eyes on before

It's starting to get interesting

We don't see any coral relying on sunlight

It's that we see fan corals and weed corals

This reef community definitely appeared to be thriving

In his quest to find out what lives down here

Richard can only bring a few specialment back to the surface

to be documented for science

Looking around I see at least a dozen new fish species

that I have never seen before

I doubt anyone has ever seen them before

Scientists like Richard

are mapping the web of life that

we are all part of

Each new fish Richard finds

holds millions of years of genetic engineering

for medical research

Then the intense water pressure

cause the primary camera

to mulfunction

I was glad that Howard coordinated into the dive

We hoped that Howard's images

would let scientist explore reef

that they might never be able to dive on their own

It's not everyday you could do witness

that a discovery of a new species of fish

You see the red one with the long tale

that's what I was really excited

That's definitely live

Oh yeh, I see those all the time

Until quite recently

the deep coral reef was

the big dark boy on the map of life

But each new discovery

leads us to the new connections

This may seen like just some insignificant little red fish

But it's very important piece

to the biodiversity puzzle

as soon as I saw I knew it's something different

The months of hard work in Fiji paid off

Rusi have seen first time

how corals can thrive when reefs are protected

He is now ready to return to his home island

My fellow Fijians have shown me

how to set up a marine preserve

protect the mangroves

and even cut logging operations

I really want to get started

Here in Fiji we've seen some amazing reefs

but we've also seen a lot of coral damage

The siltation we saw in Rusi's reef

let us to a next question

Is closeness to shore

a major risk factor for corals?

French Polynesia is a perfect place

for answering this question

Sailing a reach before a following sea

On the downhill run to Papeete

In French Polynesia

Howard and Michelle started with

the heavily populated islands of Tahiti and Moorea

where the reefs are close to shore

But with only six weeks left in the whole expedition

Howard had to get the big picture fast

I'm used to hang gliders

I'm used to fly around that the contraption like this

But there is still something not quite right

about the engine that will fit in my backpack

Moorea is sort of like Rusi's island

The coral here is very sensitive

to siltation and pollution

because the corals are very close to the shore

After checking out the north side of Moorea

we head across the mountain to survey the south coast

Even near towns

we didn't spot much reef damage

Coastal development puts reef in jeopardy

Siltation, pollution and the lose of mangroves

are all serious risks

But resource like this proved that

respecting the environment is good business

because tourists avoid damage reefs

Our flight over Moorea

just gave us a first impression

so was time running out

I turned to reef check aboard the survey boat

the Quicksilver Crossing

Reef check has over 4,000 sport divers in 60 countries

monitoring the health of coral reefs

We ask three check voluntaries

to check the coral damage here in Moorea

to find out if the reefs close to shore

are the most severely damaged

From the air

it's clear how these volcanic islands formed

and how coral reefs formed around them

The steepest and youngest islands

Tahiti and Moorea

stands tall

These islands have not eroded and subsided much

so the coral reefs ringing them is not far offshore

Bora Bora is mid-raise

The volcano has subsided and eroded somewhat

and the reefs are farther from shore

The final state

is this flat donut of island called an atoll

The volcano has completely subsided back into the sea

leaving a ring of coral which once circled a tall mountain

The team headed for the second largest atoll in the world

Rangeroa

to survey the remotest reefs in French Polynesia

10 years ago

a cyclone wiped out most Rangeroa's coral

But storms are natural events

and coral reef still recover from them

as long as human impacts don't interfere

Here the coral seems small but healthy

Right away we saw two male para fish

fighting over territory

This was a sign of large thriving fish population

But why haven't we seen the huge schools

of gray reef sharks Rangeroa so famous for

Their absence is not necessarily a danger sign for corals

but it could seen a random balancing the whole reef eco system

so finding the shark became our main goal

We search the shark's favorite hangouts

but they didn't seem to be home

We use caution because

one thing you don't want to do

is catch a grey reef shark by surprise

If the sharks arow roaming reef and the shallow water

the quickest way to spot them

is from the outer light

Throughout the Pacific

whole population of sharks had been wiped out

by commercial fishermen

Grey reef shark are especially vulnerable

and that's what worry me

The area search for sharks turns out nothing

and we are running out of time

But there is one last place to look

to put a pass

Here the current just screams

Hundreds of starvel sharks are hanging out

like street gang in this little canyon

We were being swept right , into them

and there is nothing we can do about it

Could they be mating

This is when you try very hard

not to look like a shark

I had two friends badly biten by gray reef sharks

The most social of all sharks

grace tender swimming tight groups

I've been diving for 35 years

but I've never seen the likes of this

There must be 300 sharks in this school

and that's a healthy number

This big school doesn't close the book

but it is a favorable sign

for the health of this reef ecosystem

We party with the sharks for nearly an hour

Knowing that on our way home

we have a current on our backs

so we can go with the flow

Looking at the world through the sunset in your eyes

Trying to make the train to clear Moroccan skies

Bugs and pigs and chickens call

Animal carpet wall to wall

American man is five foot tall and you

Sweeping cobwebs from the edges of my mind

Had to get away to see what we could find

Hope the days that lie ahead

Bring us back to where they've led

Listen up to what's been said to you

Don't you know we're riding on the Marrakesh Express

They're taking me to Marrakesh

oh oh oh

oh.......

For 10 exhausting but magical months

Michelle and I explored

some of the most magnificent coral reefs on earth

During that time

our concern for corals grew into a shared passion

My people look at the reef

and we don't want to believe such a place

could be gone forever

My friends Howard and Michelle

have given me new tools to heal my village reef

Howard's love for the reefs nearly cost him his life

But after making more than 500 dives

we came back with some really powerful images

One image I can't get out of my mind

is that alone octopus calling to the rubble

Soon it may not have a home

No one sets out to kill a beautiful thing

But when a reef dies

billions of living things die

Corals appear to be dying faster than normal

and the trend is rapidly accelerating

Most living coral reefs as we know them today

could be gone in 30 years

If that happens

then something inside of me will die too

After all the coral reefs have given us

more and more people are now returning the favor

Their supporting leaders who fight global warming

joining teams like "Reef Check"

and getting involved

We may have greater potential

of finding new medicines on

coral reefs than any other environment on earth

To save them is really saving ourselves

Don't ever ask them why

If they told you, you would cry

So just look at them and sigh

It take a long long time to build a coral reef

step by step

The reefs survive on partnerships

and the most important partners the corals have

are YOU and I