A bold plan to protect 30 percent of the Earth's surface and ocean floor | Enric Sala

TED Talks Daily

TED

Creativity, Business, Design, Inspiration, Society & Culture, Science, Technology, Education, Tech Demo, Ted Talks, Ted, Entertainment, Tedtalks

4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 30 December 2021

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

As a diver in the 1970s, marine ecologist Enric Sala saw once-lush oceanscapes reduced to underwater deserts -- but later, in marine preserves across the globe, he also witnessed the ocean's power to rejuvenate itself when left to its own natural devices. Could rewilding the planet help us restore biodiversity and reduce the impacts of climate change? Sala presents the 30x30 initiative: a global plan to protect 30 percent of the Earth's surface and the ocean floor by 2030.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're listening to TED Talks Daily. I'm your host, Elise Hugh. Here's a wild stat. We have removed more than 90% of the fish in the ocean in the last century. Marine ecologist Enrique Sala says we've got to change that and better protect the oceans. In his talk recorded for the Countdown Summit in 2021, he reminds us of the importance of biodiversity,
0:26.9	which gives the planet crucial natural carbon removal for free.
0:33.9	When I was a kid growing up in the Mediterranean, I was fascinated by the underwater world that Jack Cousteau showed us on TV.
0:42.9	When he started filming in the mid-1940s, the Mediterranean shores were still full of large fish.
0:49.2	But when I went to the sea to swim in the 70s, I saw none of that.
0:53.3	There were sea urchins on a barren bottom,
0:55.8	but I never saw a large fish. The industrialization of fishing after Second World War put the latest
1:01.7	nail in the coffin of Mediterranean marine life. I thought nature was lost, until I started
1:08.4	scuba diving in the Medas Islands Marine Reserve in Spain. One square
1:13.1	kilometer, fully protected from fishing and other damaging activities. I still remember that first
1:19.1	dive in the reserve. As soon as I put my head underwater, I felt like diving into one of
1:25.2	Cousteau's films. What was missing from the sea of my childhood was there.
1:29.7	Gruppers, sea bass, octopus, scorpion fish, seawood forests.
1:34.1	Just a few years of protection had allowed the sea to bounce back.
1:37.5	I have seen this miracle happen in other areas across the ocean, like in Cabo Poulmo, Mexico,
1:42.6	where local fishermen were so upset with not having
1:46.3	enough fish to catch that in the mid-90s, they asked the Mexican government to create a
1:51.0	no-take area, a national park in the sea. We surveyed the marine environment then, and the place
1:56.8	was an underwater desert. When we returned a decade later, everything had changed. What had been
2:04.4	a barren sea was now a kaleidoscope of life and color. We saw it come back to Pristine in only
2:11.1	10 years, including the return of the large fish like groupers, jacks, and sharks. And those visionary fishermen are better
2:20.0	off now from diving tourism inside the reserve and better fishing around it. But today, globally,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -1188 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from TED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of TED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.