Ocean
Earth's Last Wilderness - THE LANDMARK NEW BOOK BY DAVID ATTENBOROUGH
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- 10,99 €
Publisher Description
** THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER **
'Gripping... the wildlife is so fantastical that the images on the page feel like works of the imagination.' Evening Standard
'THIS IS THE STORY OF OUR OCEAN AND WE MUST WRITE ITS NEXT CHAPTER TOGETHER. FOR IF WE SAVE THE SEA, WE SAVE OUR WORLD. AFTER A LIFETIME OF FILMING OUR PLANET, I'M SURE THAT NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT.'
From the icy seas 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 wilderness - the one which shapes the land we live on, regulates our climate and creates the air we breathe.
Dive into eight unique saltwater habitats, swim through kelp forests, mangroves and coral reefs and down almost 11,000 feet to the deepest corners of the most unexplored ecosystem on our planet.
Experience a journey of wonder and discovery, populated by green turtles and blue whales; clownfish and bioluminescent jellyfish; the vampire squid and the 'head-less chicken monster' - a strange form of sea cucumber that lives at the very bottom of the ocean.
With the warmth, intelligence and awe that characterises all of David Attenborough's landmark series, Ocean shows us a world which is both desperately fragile yet astonishingly resilient, with an extraordinary capacity to repair itself. It's not too late to restore our most vital habitat. If we treat it with respect, our marine world will be even richer and more spectacular than we can imagine.
A book almost a century in the making, but one that has never been more urgently needed.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Naturalist Attenborough (A Life on Our Planet) joins forces with Butfield (Earthshot)—cofounder of the environmental documentary production company Studio Silverback—to provide an awe-inspiring exploration of the open ocean, kelp forests, and six other marine biomes. Examining the ecological interactions that structure each habitat, the authors explain how coral reefs depend on the fish that live inside their many "nooks, holes, and crevices" and eat seaweed that might otherwise block out the sunlight coral need to survive. The authors highlight the remarkable ways animals have adapted to their environment, noting, for instance, how the cock-eyed squid evolved asymmetrical eyes—the larger of which looks upward to "spot prey against the very dim light from the surface" while the smaller one searches for bioluminescent creatures below—to survive in the deep ocean. Such trivia intrigues, and the authors balance alarming overviews of how humans are disrupting ocean ecosystems with uplifting stories of people working to prevent such harms. For instance, the authors lament how excessive trawling off England's southern coast since the 1980s has hollowed out the kelp forests that once flourished there and recount how free diver Eric Smith teamed up with wildlife documentarian Sarah Cunliffe in a successful effort to persuade U.K. officials to ban trawling near the shore in 2021. Attenborough's admirers will savor this. Illus.
