(breathing heavily) - [Amir] I'm about to share with you an urgent issue that affects us all. Our main source of oxygen is
on the verge of collapsing. Whether or not you heed the warning in these next few moments will be the difference
between our survival or our extinction. (suspenseful music) (alarm beeping) (yawns) (waves crashing) Show me today's news. - In other news grain crops has failed after multiple attempts and oxygen levels are critically low. Worldwide government
advised do not go outside without your oxygen masks. Please be safe. Breaking news. Today is a day we'll never forget. We've just lost the last coral reef that's been preserved until now. It's official. Your kids and generations to come will never see marine life again. (ambient music) (waves crashing) - [Amir] Dear oceans of the world, I'm sorry that we as a
society let you down. I would do anything to go back in the time and reverse the damage
we have done to you. I'm sorry for polluting you. Filling your water with microplastics, destroying your underwater forests brimming with potential
cures for countless diseases, and decimating your marine life. (ambient music) We were given so much, the only planet in our
solar system with life and yet we wasted it. It was our duty to protect Mother Nature, yet we completely neglected your cries in exchange for imaginary wealth. - Dire warning about climate change. According to a new report-- - It will cause environmental
and economic devastation. - Ecosystems that provide
us with breathable air, drinkable water, fertile soil, and bountiful seas. - Our civilization is being sacrificed for the opportunity of a
very small number of people to continue making
enormous amounts of money. - [Amir] The world isn't the same anymore. We're struggling. We didn't realize what
we had until it was gone. I would do anything to go back in the time to send a message to everyone
inhabiting the planet, saying that we should have stood together, to voice that now is the time
to stand up and take action, so that we could redirect
the course of the future to save it. If only I could go back. I'm sorry we failed. (ambient music) (heart beating) (breathing heavily) (waves crashing) (ambient music) Huh. What is this? Reverse the damage? I haven't seen one of
these shells in years. (thunder rumbling) (rooster crowing) (phone ringing) Hello? - [Justin] Bro, what
happened, did you sleep in? Come on, let's go surf. - [Amir] Surf? What do you mean? - [Justin] I've been
waiting outside your house for the past 30 minutes. Come on, get your butt out of here. - What are you doing man? Let's go! Get in, we're perspiring. Come on, you coop. We don't got all day. Let's go! Oh man, it's such a nice day. I can't wait to get out on the reef, the waves are firing today. - [Amir] The reef? - Yes, there, why are you acting so weird? What is wrong with you? - [Amir] I haven't seen
the reef in years man. - What are you talking about? We were just surfing yesterday. - [Amir] Just pull over at the bay, there's something I gotta show you. - Okay. - [Amir] Hey, leave the boards. Take the mask. We gotta go check out the reef. - Okay. Why are we out here? - [Amir] Dive down and
tell me what you see. - Okay Man, why have I never seen this before? - Why haven't any of us notice this? We have to tell the world
what's happening to our reefs. And that's how this all started. Seeing with my own eyes what's happening to one of our most important ecosystems, yet no one seemed aware
of what was happening. I knew that if we didn't
take immediate action to help save our reefs, we would soon be terrorized
by them becoming obsolete. I made the goal to create a film that can not only spread awareness, but help bring positive
action before it's too late. But in order to do this I needed help. I knew exactly who I needed to call. My friends, Tim Sykes and Mat Abad started a charity called Karmagawa, a foundation that brings charities, greatly needed donations, and helps them spread their
great work through social media. Their most recent project with Sam Potter to help save the Rhinos raised
over $1 million in donations and received over 30 million
views on social media which brought massive
awareness for that cause. I knew that together we
could really get the word out about how urgent it is to save our reefs and marine life before it's too late. (upbeat music) - What's up, Amir? You do your sit ups yet today? - [Amir] Man, no time for sit ups. Tim, I just discovered something that's happening to our oceans. We gotta make a video about it. - Oh man, that sounds intense. Why don't you come
over, let's make a plan. - Cool, I'll be there in a sec. (upbeat music) After explaining to them what I learned, we created the project Save The Reef to bring everyone together to
share this message worldwide and put together a plan of action. We would travel to coral
reefs around the world and document what we saw while also meeting with
local leaders and charities in each location. We take our friends to show
off their current state to help educate the world and see what we can do to fix the problem. (upbeat music) But you're probably wondering
what a coral reef is. Coral reefs known as the
rainforests of the seas are a haven for marine life. Coral polyps are tiny,
soft-bodied organisms related sea anemones and jellyfish. Corals provide homes for
thousands of animals and plants and grants us the oxygen we breathe. An estimated 25% of all marine species live near the coral reefs even though they take up less
than 1% of the ocean floor. These reefs provide billions of dollars worth of economic value
to people every year through fisheries, tourism, and
protection from storm waves. So what exactly is
happening to these reefs? Before I dive into that, I need to take you back
to where this all began and what better place to
go talk about the ocean than Kansas. - Kansas. (laughs) ♪ You got your mama's sunshine ♪ ♪ You got your daddy's rain ♪ ♪ You're like a piece of heaven ♪ ♪ In a hurricane ♪ ♪ And it's bubbling over ♪ - [Amir] My name's Amir Zakeri. I was born the youngest of eight kids and raised in the Midwest of the US, over 700 miles from the
nearest drop of saltwater. Being landlocked, my
only view of the ocean was through the
interpretation of the media. I moved to Hawaii right out of high school and man did I fall in
love with this place. ♪ Blue birds sing ♪ ♪ Sometimes you cry your big blue eyes ♪ - [Amir] But it's here I began to notice that the ocean was in a
different state of health than I had once imagined it to be. I had pictured the Pacific to be clean and filled with vibrant coral reefs flourishing with marine life. It didn't take long to learn the reality of the critical condition of the ocean. The more I learned, the more
I realized I didn't know. I wanted to see if my
family's new generation was just as uneducated as I had once been about what's really
happening to our planet. - [Woman] Uncle's here. - Audio test. - (giggles) Okay. - I have a question for you. - Okay. - Do you know what a coral is? Have you seen these before? - Yeah in "Little Mermaid." - You don't know what it is though? - No.
- Do you know what it does? - [Aelyn] I think it keeps us healthy. - Yeah, how? - Because it comes from the ocean? - And how does the ocean keep us healthy? - Because, I don't know. - You don't know?
- No. - [Amir] Well, what does this look like? - A bumpy rock with
holes in it and carved? - Do you know its purpose? - No. - No?
- No. - [Amir] So you don't know what this is? - No. - Do you know what a tree is? - Yes. - Yeah?
- Yeah. - [Amir] They're kinda everywhere. - Yeah. - What do trees do for us? - They make us have oxygen. - Yeah. - Yeah.
- So we can do what? - [Aelyn] So we can breathe, yeah. - What if I told you that this was just as important as a tree. - Okay. - What color is this? - White. - Yeah?
- Yeah. - [Amir] And what color are
the corals in the movies? - A rainbow. - A rainbow? - Yeah.
- With like a lot of fish. - [Aelyn] Yeah. - [Amir] Just like Aelyn, I too
thought the underwater world was this bright and colorful
place filled with life. I never would have
imagined it to be suffering 'cause how else are you supposed to know and this is how most
media depicts the reef. We went to see it in person. I knew that we had to
start this in Australia because it has the
biggest reef in the world. (calm music) Our first mission was to meet up with the nonprofit organization
Great Barrier Reef Legacy. We brought along our friends Eva, Tarzan, Brother Nature, Elisha and Renee to see in person what's
happening to the reefs and what we can do to help save them. - So we've traveled from
the coasts all the way out to the Outer Barrier Reef today. We're gonna jump in. Scuba divers are gonna come
and go a little bit deeper. Snorkel so you can explore the top reef and we'll see what we see. - What did you imagine the
Great Barrier Reef to look like? - Like "Finding Nemo." Like I literally imagine
the Great Barrier Reef to look like "Finding Nemo" that's why I kind of like always had this goal to eventually learn how to scuba dive for the Great Barrier Reef. - Man we expecting to go out
to the Great Barrier Reef, see a lot of wildlife a
lot of beautiful coral, just like we see in the pictures and the magazines and the documentaries. - I mean shoot man, I watched Nemo like a hundred times, bro, so I'm so excited to come and just like see this
massive land underwater, full of wildlife, full of coral, full of things that we've
been looking forward to for our entire lives. (calm piano music) I guess you want me to tell
you something majestic, right? Like something that you
would see in like a movie or like a picture book. It's more like a graveyard. It's like apocalyptic,
you know what I'm saying? Like, breaks your heart. We've spent so many
years wishing and hoping and praying to get somewhere
to finally see something but imagine to finally get here after 20 years thinking about it. And it's nothing like you
ever thought it was gonna be. - [Amir] What did the reefs look like? - It looks like they were dying. - Like they were dying? What if I told you we only have 30 years before they're all dead. - That would be sad. - [Amir] Crazy, right? What do we need to do? - We need to save it. - So, just to give you an idea. The site that we jumped in on, you will have noticed
looked terrible, yeah? That's not what you expected to see? - No.
(chuckles) - How did you feel when you saw that? - Still hurts, you know? It was like, like you said, seeing a loved one on the deathbed, not knowing if you're gonna
see them again or not. - Yup. It's the exact opposite from that opening scene in "Finding Nemo," you know? The color, the movement, everything moving in every
direction like a busy city. You know, we kinda say it's like a bush fire's been through there. - Yeah. - It's effectively covered in algae and it's not functioning
as a coral reef anymore. And once a coral reef flips
to an algal-dominated state like with seaweeds like we just saw. it's extremely hard to get it back. - [Amir] Corals around the
world are being bleached which then leads to their death. Coral bleaching is where the coral lose their symbiotic algae that produced the food
they need to survive. This leaves them vulnerable
to other threats and diseases and even kill the coral
colonies from starvation. - What a lot of people don't understand when they hear about
coral bleaching is that really it affects corals, the building blocks of a coral reef. And once we lose those building blocks, we lose entire ecosystem function. So you can imagine as you
start pulling pieces out of this extremely complex environment it stops behaving the way we know it. And what we end up with is
something very, very different. - [Amir] Innovation for new technology to help build reef resilience is essential in our urgent crisis. Luckily, there are organizations such as the Great Barrier Reef Legacy who are a global leader
in marine expeditions delivering innovative science, education, and public engagement
to accelerate actions vital to the future
survival of coral reefs. Our second mission in Australia was to meet up with the
Reef Restoration Foundation to learn how to bring corals back to life. - I'm here with Stewart,
the CEO of Reef Restoration. - We are not for profit organization and we established the first ocean-based coral nursery in the Great Barrier Reef. And this is all about how
we start with stewarding and regenerating high value sections of the Great Barrier Reef. - Wow. So what we're doing now
is placing the coral back on the rock. Getting ready to
respirate the ocean, baby. The algae all off the coral kinda like cleaning your
sneakers a little bit. Got it nice and clean. - Now, the little small
dots you see on there are called polyps. So now we take this
environmentally-friendly putty, it's like a glue, and you stick it on. And then you find the ridges on the rocks and you stick it in there, right? - And you mentioned
when they're left alone they grow a lot faster about
six times faster, right? - When they grow on the reef we think we grow them about
six to seven times faster than they grow naturally by bud stressing them on
the trees like that, yeah? - This is coral number one. He was already here and this is my boy, Albert. He's strong, sturdy, he's getting ready to live his live in the ocean and become a big, ole coral 'cause we're helping to
restore the reef, baby. - And they're all gonna join together eventually.
- And live happily. - [Elisha] And then they'll
all just be Cal I guess. - No, they're gonna be Albert. (laughs) - We're gonna go to our, called a nursery, that is with the dry land and the first coral nursery that exists in the Great Barrier Reef. We are gonna clean the frames, we're gonna make sure
that the corals are happy, and we're gonna plant a few corals today. - [Amir] They take small
cuttings from coral that have withstood
previous bleaching events that are attached to
underwater frames to grow. After six to 12 months,
the corals are attached back onto the reef. From one small cutting, thousands of new corals can be created. Once those coral fragments
grow they will help recreate the reef environment and marine life will be able to return while also strengthening the new reef. It was awesome to get
hands-on with this project but I couldn't help but feel this problem might be bigger than I had imagined. (dramatic piano music) Next up was Belize which has the second largest reef in the world. We heard of an eco-friendly
resort there called Hamanasi and wanted to see what they're doing to help save the oceans. (uplifting instrumental music) Hamanasi has eliminated
all single-use plastics. It was awesome to see their
handmade straws from bamboo. They support local products and farms, switched to reef-safe sunscreen and teach the tourists about the reef and how they can help save it. (uplifting instrumental music) It was so inspiring to see a resort support a healthier planet and after seeing how they
instituted these changes, I realized all hotels could also make similar positive changes. (uplifting instrumental music) It was a relief to see
that the Belize reef was in surprisingly good shape. I wanted to know why so I met up with Janelle from Oceana, a local charity that has pushed hard for stricter environmental laws here. - Got the government to
pass in December 2017 an indefinite offshore oil moratorium and Belize became one of the
first countries in the world to do this to say that we do not want something that is so inherently
hazardous and dangerous, and permanent to destroy these resources that we depend on as a country and as a people every single day. There's one thing on land
that you spill something and you can clean it up. Once it gets into the
water you can't tell it, "Oh, go over here, don't go over there." - [Amir] While I was filming
one of the local beaches, I met a boy named Karim. He was only 12 years old
but the most knowledgeable 12-year-old I'd ever met. Here's his message to the world. - This, it's white and the turtles will probably
think it's a jellyfish and they will eat it and it will get stuck in their intestines, and they will die. You can take your own bag and
put your stuff in your bag so you don't use any more plastic. - Seems like a little thing. - Yeah. - But if enough people do it. - It will be a big thing. - There won't be that. - Yeah. This won't be here. (uplifting music) I saw a turtle with like he was dead and he had a piece of plastic
coming out of his mouth. - [Amir] Coming out of his mouth? - Like it was in his beak, it was stuck. The poor animal just living its life and dying because of this, yeah. (uplifting music) - Look, you're standing on one of them. - Yeah.
- It just doesn't end. - [Karim] Yeah, it's a
never-ending rain of plastic. It's really hard to clean
it but it's not really hard. It's just your mentality. (uplifting music) It's everywhere. Even the small, little bits count. And a small thing can
make a big difference. We need garbage bins. (uplifting music) Yeah. Thanks. There's a lot of plastic and stuff and eventually this will end up in the sea and something will eat it. Maybe years it has been
here and it hasn't, it hasn't degraded yet. No matter how hard we
try to clean our village, people still come and mess it
up with plastics and stuff. - [Amir] What's the
solution to this epidemic? - I think the solution for
this is to inform them, educate the people
about the use of plastic and tell these companies
to stop using plastic, to use something even
expensive or not plastic. Even though it cost a lot of money it will still make a
difference in the world. So, there will be less animals dying. They're just living
their life being animals and we just come here to
throw garbage and kill them. Kids don't don't really know about it so it's up to the adults
to teach them about it. Everywhere you go you see plastic. - By 2030, if we continue
to litter the way we do and use as many single-use
plastic items as we do, we will have more plastic
in the oceans than fish. And also in terms of our behavior rates, in terms of energy and dependence on things like fossil fuel, by 2050 we would have
compromised most of the, if not all of the underwater
life on our planet. And that is really some scary facts, those are the ones that
keep me up at night. - [Alice] Plastic is now found in all the furthest reaches of our planet. At the bottom of the deepest sea, on the most remote beaches, and even inside people. My research found plastic
in about a quarter of fish species in the Pacific Ocean. Plastic production is on track to double in the next 20 years. - Although Belize is making giant steps in preserving their oceans, unfortunately they are still
seeing death in their reefs. You're from here, you're from Belize and tell me about the reef,
your experience with it. - Yeah, when I was growing
up the reef was very bright and there was so much
healthy life on the reef, and now they're dying. - [Amir] Little did we know
it wasn't the lack of effort from the Belizeans that was
killing the coral reefs. One of the main contributors
was the global issue of climate change. After realizing the somber fact, we decided to continue the
journey to the Seychelles, a place that had been on
all of our bucket lists since we were kids. - First time in Seychelles, about to go on a first dive out here. - [Amir] What are you expecting? - Beauty, fish, turtles. Good times and good vibes. - [Amir] You've seen a bunch
of videos of Seychelles and the reefs and stuff? - Yeah, since like
Tumblr, since we're kids and I'm like, all the
big rocks in the beach, the beautiful sea life. Go check it out. - [Amir] All right,
check out the good reef. (dramatic music) - Yo. - [Amir] So, how was it? - Crazy, man. - [Amir] What do you mean? Was it as alive as you thought? - [Jay] It's not like it looks
on internet, that's for sure. - [Amir] No way. - It's like all the coral in just like fields and fields of dead coral and it's great there's
still so much marine life but like just everything is dead, everything is smallest resemblance
of like some live coral but it's crazy. You look around, everything is so green, so blue, so perfect, you wouldn't expect that like
beneath the layer of water it's just dead. But it's crazy coming from Hawaii, it's like seeing like
pretty good reef to here, it's like you never wanna see this happen to your home that's for sure. - [Amir] We immediately met
up with a local organization, Marine Conservation Society of Seychelles, to hear about their reefs. - When I was growing up the
coral reef around Seychelles was so beautiful. I used to enjoy snorkeling. It was always lovely to
see beautiful colors, beautiful species of fish everywhere. And now after I've went back to the water 2016 beaching event, it was just horrible. Like it was really sad to see
that a lot of corals had died and there was barely anything to look at. Since 2017 they started coral projects whereby they partnered with hotels to be able to restore degraded
reefs around the hotel areas. - [Amir] Right away we
went to our hotel staff and asked about their
conservation practices. - We have also partnered up with the Marine Conservation
Society of Seychelles. We've done a snorkeling
trail where snorkels are guided with the guests and they explain everything the environment is going through, and we have a coral nursery. We're doing a coral restoration program. For this past year we've
stopped plastic straws, plastic water bottles in the rooms, we've stopped completely plastic bags. So if you imagine hotels
with hundreds of rooms and all the plastic
that they could consume is quite enormous. - I couldn't believe how much coral death we had seen through our journey
leading up to this point. I was hoping this would
be the turn for good news but it wasn't. We then headed to South
Africa with our friends to meet up with the
charity Shark Conservancy. Surface is so dark I
can't even see underwater. What's happening to the reefs here? - I mean these reefs are being destroyed at an alarming rate and the problem is today, there aren't very many of them left. We study the role of
sharks in ocean ecosystems and try and understand how sharks are shaping the world around them. Sharks around the world are experiencing huge population declines and this is forever changing
the face of our oceans. We need to understand how sharks and how ocean health are related, and how that affects us as human beings. - [Amir] Seeing that our cold water reefs were in the same critical state as our tropical reefs shocked me. Each corner of the world
seemed to be affected. (dramatic music) - I was in Kauai when I
was like 11 years old, my grandma lived there and I remember snorkeling
for my first time and just like I was amazed by the colors and the amount of fish. 10 years later to the same
spots and it was so dead and so much different
than what I expected. - It's crazy because nobody knows and it's affecting us all, and it's affecting all of the ocean. And so, we really just
need to start fixing it and bringing awareness to
it and having everybody know and using the right products, and not using so much plastic. - Would be one of the
most rewarding things to bring up a family and
allow them to see the world in the way that I did and not have to explain
things that are extinct because we weren't able to treat our earth with, you know, enough care. (dramatic music) - [Amir] The second to last stop on our global journey was Tahiti, my favorite place I had ever visited. It was here that we worked with
a charity, Coral Gardeners, who were my main inspiration to make this film in the first place. - This lagoon in front of my house, it's, yeah, like 80%
in Maharepa in Mo'orea, 80% of the reef is dead. (uplifting instrumental music) We are collecting coral
broken, mostly broken by humans and we are planting them back on the reef so that we can have new
babies coral that will grow into a new reef. (uplifting instrumental music) - When you go down there and you see this little piece of coral
and you can plant it, and you know that that's
your piece of coral that you're bringing back
into the environment, it's a really good feeling and we need those little good feelings to keep going in the conservation world 'cause it's so much doom
and gloom all the time. - It was hard to believe that a place this beautiful and pristine
could be suffering. Even the local fishermen we met up with told us how hard it was to
catch a fish to feed his family. We spent time with the local kids and they really helped me
understand how much their life depends on the reef. (uplifting instrumental music) After three long months
of traveling the world, we finally headed home to Hawaii. When we arrived we immediately went to have some much-needed conversations with some of our good friends. You were explaining to me earlier how the sprays that people are
spraying on their lawn, how that can impact the
environment natively. - Yeah, well, the World
Health Organization just put out a claim that a roundup is guaranteed
of cancer-causing carcinogen. Huge chemical corporations here that farm experimental GMO seed. So, where they're farming
and there's a lot of water outlets that run from the mountain all the way through to the ocean. And so, out in front of those places, the reefs are dead, you know? There's been a major die
offs of sea urchins out there like millions of sea urchins dead. Well you look right down
the street from my house, we got a huge golf course for the last like 20 years or 30 years. The reefs out front where
all the rivers come out are all dead, there's no fish, there's no limu which is seaweed. All the seaweeds die. And so, when the seaweeds die
the fish don't come around, the reefs die. The fish feed the reefs so it's become like a epidemic of overuse of these things
that make your life easier but aren't good for you and your family. (dramatic music) - Growing up on Oahu it's
been absolutely crazy watching what's been
happening to our reefs. I would say the number
one thing that I see is when I jump in the water in Waikiki area because there's a lot of
people going in the ocean there and a lot of people aren't
making the right decisions on what sunscreen to wear. And if you ever go snorkeling at Waikiki, the reefs are non-existent
and it's really sad, and the reefs out here at
pipeline almost non-existent. It's really sad to see
what's happening around here. - Chemical sunscreens first
and foremost primarily are threatening our coral reefs. What you put on your
body, the sunscreen-wise, washes off into the ocean and
those chemicals are actually killing off our coral reefs. - [Amir] What chemicals in particular? - Primarily oxybenzone and octinoxate but there are more studies showing that all of the chemicals in
chemical sunscreen formulas are harmful to coral reefs - [Amir] So, what are the alternatives? - You definitely want a mineral non-nano zinc oxide-based sunscreen. The mineral non-nano zinc oxide
is not harmful to the coral and it cannot be absorbed by the coral, so it mitigates any toxicity. - We started noticing
declines in coral reefs around 1980, 1985 which
is about the same time that personal care products
like sunscreen lotion were used prominently by
tourists going to these beaches and visiting these coral reefs. What we're doing is we're
looking at oxybenzone, a common UV chemical found
in many sunscreen lotions and aerosol sprays. Oxybenzone can cause an
adverse effect in coral at 62 parts per trillion. That is equivalent to one drop of water in six-and-a-half Olympic
sized swimming pools. So you don't need a lot
to cause a lot of damage. (dramatic music) (waves crashing) (ambient music) - The oceans are providing the majority of the oxygen that we breathe and it's this really neat
symbiotic relationship between the coral reefs
and the marine life and the marine plants and phytoplankton to provide all of that oxygen for us. - So it's scary to think that by 2050 it's projected that we won't
have any coral reefs by then and knowing that most of our oxygen comes from the oceans and from the reefs, and that's a very scary thought, and I can't imagine what
life will be like without it. (ambient music) (heart beating) (breathing heavily) (ambient music) - All the islands out there
in the world are basically, they almost have this
like shield around them which is like the reef, right? And it protects like
the raw ocean coming in and like eroding the land. - Yeah, like this house
wouldn't be here, you know? If this reef all dies and crumbles and then there's no protection here, all these houses would go in. - Seem like we are in survival mode because if you look
outside it looks beautiful. - Yeah.
- It's nice but we don't see the subtle
change of what's happening. So I think that that's a hard thing to always be aware of. - I think the most important
thing to remember is how connected even things from
halfway across the world affects your backyard. - But learning the
science behind everything that 70% of our oxygen
comes from the ocean, I realized that we need to do something, that everyone needs to care about this, that our oceans, our land, our sky, like everything's connected and we're part of that connection, and we need to start
taking that seriously. - [Amir] I've learned so much
while working on this project. How everything in our oceans play a role and when just one species disappears, then the entire ecosystem could collapse. (ambient music) - It's sad when you hear the facts about the disappearance of sharks worldwide. 70 to 100 million are killed every year and they're looking in the last 30 years that we've wiped out 90% to 95% of the world's shark populations. And it's a keystone species, it shows the health of the oceans. You know, if you're missing
these apex predators everything else is kinda gonna
fall apart underneath of it. So they're really kind of
like a look into the future of what's going on with our oceans. With the disappearance of sharks, I mean we could see a whole
collapse of the ocean. - So everywhere where shark
populations have been wiped out they've seen a degradation of local reefs and a crash in their
fish stock populations, and this might be
attributed to the fact that if you don't have a
predator that's picking off those weaker, sick,
wounded, injured animals then there's overgrazing, so the fish could just eat all the coral, but ultimately end up starving. Overpopulation where they
don't have enough to eat after this happens or diseases spread. So if there's no doctor in the
society and disease spreads then you have this big crash. - It's official. Your kids and generations to come will never see marine life again. - 60% of our population depend on healthy coastal marine ecosystems and the minute that goes
away, everything else does. (dramatic music) - If you enjoy breathing outside everyday, this affects you and you need act now. (dramatic music) - [Dustin] Our generation
was brainwashed to be lazy, to do things the easy way
and not the right way. So like it's our responsibility
to teach our kids and lead by example especially that we gotta do things the right way. (dramatic music) (speaking in foreign language) (thunder rumbles) (speaking in foreign language) - I can't imagine walking outside and having to wear an
oxygen mask just to breathe. - The thought of that terrifies me, you've got no idea.
- But why don't. This is what I don't understand, why does the whole world
not know this right now? It's making me like scratch my head, why is everyone walking around? - Look. Look at this. You look at it, it looks pristine. You don't think any
more about it, you know? No matter where you're from in the world, you rarely think about
what's happening under there and how that impacts us
but it does and it will. - [Amir] We're at the
last stage, the last. - This is the tipping point, right? (dramatic music) - Knowing that nightmare
vision I had of the future scared me to my core. But there is hope. In order for us to realistically redirect the course of the future we need your help. When this film premieres on June 13th, it will be my 23rd birthday. And my one wish is to
have you share this video with all of your friends and family so that we can make everyone
aware of what's happening to our oceans before our main
source of oxygen collapses. My friends and I didn't
just travel to these places. We're in probably the most
beautiful place on earth and here is the reality. This. We also shared everything
we learned on social media. - Thing behind us. - Water bottles in excess. - [Amir] education is key
to turning things around so here are the four biggest contributors to the death of our reefs and oceans and what you can do to help prevent it. The use of oil, fossil fuels and coal all contribute to increasing
our planet's temperatures which has catastrophic
consequences for our environment. The earth has already warmed
1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since the 19th century. If the earth warms a half degree more it may mean the difference
between a world with coral reefs or a world without. Instead we must look to
clean and renewable energy, solar, wind and electric vehicles. Use more ride-sharing as much as possible. Start walking more or riding bikes. Anything we can do to
reduce our dependence on the stuff that's killing our planet. Virtually all rural areas near
the coastlines' runoff water is polluted by pesticides. Runoff goes directly to our oceans in turn killing our marine
life and coral reefs. It's been found that
these chemicals affect all life history stages of corals so we must stop this as soon as possible. Please stop spraying
your lawns and vegetation with these harmful chemicals. Use natural herbicides instead or just don't spray at all. Scientists have found that an estimated 14,000 tons of sunscreen is deposited into our oceans and reefs every year. That's 28 million pounds. Oxybenzone and octinoxate are
the most popular chemicals found in non-reef safe sunscreens and they are also the most potent killers of our coral reefs. Read and look at the label carefully before you buy or use sunscreen. Make sure it says reef-safe. 381 million tons of plastic
was produced in 2017 and yet only 9% of all the world's plastic has ever been recycled. One million marine animals
are killed annually due to entanglement and ingestion. And reports are now saying that 70% of all fish
have ingested plastic, and we ingest fish. We're slowly poisoning
ourselves and our future. The good news is you and I
can be part of the solution. Challenge yourself and others
to minimize plastic use and you might be surprised at how many alternatives already exist. For example, when shopping
bring your own reusable bags. Don't use plastic bags
for fruits and vegetables or plastic bottles for drinking. Drink from reusable canisters. Encourage your local stores
to stop using so much plastic and tell your local restaurants to switch to biodegradable material. Visit savethereef.org where
you can learn more about these important issues and also check out and
support the charities we worked with during this film to help them conserve and
bring our coral reefs back. - Karmagawa Foundation, we are donated 15,000 US dollar to Coral Gardeners. Yeah, thanks bro. (crowd applauding) - [Amir] Thanks, bro. - Thanks, Amir. - We are donating $25,000
to Reef Restoration! (crowd applauding) - I want to surprise Dean with a boat for $50,000 from Karmagawa. - Are you serious?
- 'Cause I know you wanted a boat.
(laughs) (crowd applauding) - As we've already donated
$90,000 to these charities but with your help it's
just the beginning. You can donate to them and purchase Save The Reef charity apparel where all the profits will go
to helping rebuild our reefs, marine life and oceans too. In order for this to work we must all do our part to make change. - You as the consumer have all the power, you vote with your dollar. When you go to the store you're the one that's gonna pick out whether you choose that item
that's wrapped in plastic or what kind of chemicals you're buying and what you're really
ultimately supporting. - And by supporting these
businesses that are prioritizing sustainable business
practices and innovation it's like we're directly speaking to what we value as consumers. - What gets me up going
everyday is meeting young people and seeing people willing
to be part of that change and to lead where they can, and it all starts with one. We know what happens
with one drop of water when it keeps gathering and
then it becomes the waterfall, and that's what I love, that change is coming
and we're a part of it. (uplifting instrumental music) - [Amir] We were given the gift of life on a planet filled with
everything we could ever need. As you've seen, we've come to a crossroad. We can either make history or we will become history. The key to saving our beautiful world starts with you. (beeping) (calm instrumental music) (uplifting instrumental music)
thanks for sharing! it brought me to tears and so much more awareness.
Thank you for spreading the message, and I hope more people really become aware. I've been against plastic for ever!
Thank you for posting, I will come back and watch this tonight.
Great documentary, been doing all I can, following all the advice of this. I will share, but the most important change has to come from big corporations polluting the ocean.
I have visited Galapagos and I can say there is little impact to be seen. I’m sure 20-30 years ago it was way better and now ocean life has been depleting but plastic has arrived there yet.
Thank you for posting. I'll be watching this when I get off of work tonight.