From the icy oceans of our poles to remote coral islands, David Attenborough has filmed in every ocean habitat on planet earth. Now, with long-term collaborator Colin Butfield, he shares the story of our last great, critical wilderness, and the one which shapes the land we live on, regulates our climate and creates the air we breathe.
Through one hundred years, eight unique ocean habitats, countless intriguing species – and through personal stories, history and cutting-edge science – Ocean uncovers the mystery, the wonder and the frailty of the most unexplored habitat on our planet. And it shows its remarkable resilience: it is the part of our world that can, and in some cases has, recovered the fastest, and in our lifetimes we could see a fully restored marine world, even richer and more spectacular than we could possibly hope, if we act now.
It is a book almost a century in the making, but one that has never been more urgently needed.
Sir David Attenborough is a broadcaster and naturalist whose television career is now in its seventh decade. After studying Natural Sciences at Cambridge and a brief stint in publishing, he joined the BBC in 1952 and spent ten years making documentary programmes of all kinds, including the Zoo Quest series. In 1965, he was appointed Controller of a new network, BBC2, and then, after four years became editorially responsible for both BBC1 and BBC2. After eight years of administration, he returned to programme-making to write and present a thirteen-part series, Life on Earth, which surveyed the evolutionary history of animals and plants. This was followed by many other series which, between them, surveyed almost every aspect of life on earth.
Colin Butfield is co-founder of Studio Silverback, Executive Producer of the WWF's Our Planet project and an advisor for the Earthshot Prize.