As news broke that 93 per cent of the coral on the Great Barrier Reef was suffering from some level of bleaching, the ABC was preparing to broadcast the final episode of David Attenborough's ground breaking documentary on the reef.
Ironically, the focus of the final episode is the survival of the reef.
A clip from the ABC TV series, David Attenborough's Great Barrier Reef, a plea to save the Reef.
Episode one focused on the builders on the reef, episode two is about the creatures that visit the reef and episode three focuses on what is likely to happen in the future.
In a rare move, at the conclusion of the episode, Sir David makes an impassioned plea in a moving piece to camera where he speaks of the imminent threat to the reef.
"The Great Barrier Reef is in grave danger," he says.
"The twin perils brought by climate change, an increase in the temperature of the ocean and its acidity, if they continue to rise at the present rate the reefs will be gone within decades and that would be a global catastrophe."
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| David Attenborough. |
"There's surely another reason why we should protect the reefs," he says.
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| David Attenborough with Anthony Geffen. |
"Do we really care so little about the earth on which we live that we don't want to protect one of the world's greatest wonders from the consequences of our behaviour?"
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| David Attenborough with reef tanks. |
Series producer Anthony Geffen who has worked on 11 of Sir David's documentaries, said Sir David wanted to use the series to make a very personal statement.
Do we really care so little about the earth?"He is very concerned about the reef and you can see that in the very personalised piece to camera he does at the end," Geffen says.
David Attenborough
"He doesn't do that very often and he devised this end very much as a personal statement, a very powerful personal statement."
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| David Attenborough's Great Barrier Reef Photo: James Penlidis |
"After we finished filming our last documentary, I asked him where he wanted to go next, if there was one place in the world he could film where would it be," Geffen says.
"He didn't miss a beat and said the Great Barrier Reef."
Sir David first visited the reef nearly 60 years ago, filming some of the earliest scenes of people diving the reef. It had a profound impact on his life.
"He told me that out of everywhere he has been, out of everywhere he has made documentaries, the reef is still the most beautiful thing he has ever seen," Geffen says.
"That explains a lot about the beauty of the reef when the world's greatest naturalist gives that opinion."
Sir David, Geffen and their team of filmmakers and scientists are not the first to make a documentary exploring the reef, but they have certainly gone to enormous lengths in theirs.
Using a specialised submersible called the Triton, Sir David was able to film deeper on the reef than anyone has before.
The series has introduced us to fascinating species of fish and crustaceans, sharks and rays and a variety of whales that interacted with the film crew.
But now they explore what the future holds for the jewel in Queensland's crown.
"If you just look at the time between when David last dived there in the 1980s and when he went out for this series, half the reef as he would have known it has disappeared," Geffen says.
"Even if you take that as a parameter that is pretty devastating.
"And as we all know, coral bleaching has been a huge issue recently."
But episode three isn't all doom and gloom.
Using modern technology and innovative scanning techniques, Sir David explores the history of the reef and what it has gone through in the past.
"We were about to look back in time looking at these amazing scans to look at what happened to the reef before," Geffen says.
"We look in the whole context. The last episode isn't just a disaster prediction. It is trying to give people some context in how long it has been around, how it has survived before, etc.
"But it's really important for people to have an understanding of what is happening because it literally is a case that it could be gone in another few decades."
Accompanying the documentary series, there is an interactive website that allows people to explore the reef themselves and gain an understanding of the ecology of the reef system and the threats it faces.
There is also a virtual reality component, currently housed in the Sydney Museum, where people can virtually dive in the Triton with Sir David and explore the reef just like he did.
"We know that not everyone is watching television and we know that young people just don't always have time to sit down and watch TV," Geffen says.
"Hopefully these two elements will give people a different way to engage with the reef and learn about it."
The final episode of David Attenborough's Great Barrier Reef aired on ABC at 7.30pm Sunday night.
The companion website is available at www.attenboroughsreef.com.
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