THE ANTARCTIC PENINSULA | NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PRISTINE SEAS

hello everyone and welcome to the virtual world premiere of the antarctic peninsula this national graphic documentary showcases the breathtaking beauty and biodiversity hidden at the end of the earth it was an outstanding joint expedition that brought together scientists from both chile and argentina as well as the national geographic pristine system chile and argentina have proposed the designation of a marine protected area around the antarctic peninsula the peninsula is facing mountain challenges of climate change and increased fishing pressure a marine protected area would preserve the habitat of the magnificent sea life that caused this part of the ocean home it will also define places where fishing can be well managed and last but not least protection will also make the antarctic peninsula more resilient to climate change this decision cannot be made by chile and argentina alone it will be made by a collective body called cameler and its 26 members who are responsible for the conservation and management of antarctic living marine resources it is vital that these countries take action to protect the ocean around the artery peninsula many ocean creatures from the whales to the krill depend on it we need to support these international efforts to protect one of the most spectacular places on earth what happens to antarctica will ultimately happen to ourselves i hope that through watching this film you get to learn more about this incredibly unique and fragile ecosystem and why it is in urgent need of protection enjoy the show [Music] [Music] after months of planning this expedition we're finally seeing the first blocks of ice which means that we are really close to antarctic peninsula it's really great that uh we are finally able to start this uh binational expedition between chile and argentina and national geographic pristine seas the pristine seas team at national geographic has spent over a decade exploring the last wild places in the [Music] ocean [Music] to date they've helped to protect almost 6 million square kilometers of ocean in marine protected areas [Music] this is their first expedition to the southern ocean aboard the chilean naval vessel the opv marinero fuente alba this international team of scientists explorers and filmmakers is getting its first glimpses of the antarctic peninsula i mean the feeling to be in this remote place [Applause] [Music] you are kind of embraced by this landscape the eyes and so remote from everything from our daily life it's a very special place [Music] [Music] the ocean here regulates the global climate and the antarctic peninsula supports one of the largest food webs on earth it's an ecosystem that has evolved in perfect and fragile balance over thousands of years but as the climate warms and as human activity continues to approach on this area that balance is faltering the time is now to protect this world treasure this thriving wilderness at the end of the earth [Music] [Laughter] um [Applause] um oh this is amazing not every day you're able to say that you set foot on a completely new continent oh this is so hard to describe not everybody sorry can move can move my face i feel cold but it doesn't matter because it's so great to be here and everybody's already enjoying so much the penguins the water it feels clean it feels different it's not like the content it's not like a country this is completely different it's more like going to the moon then going to a different continent [Music] we're here at phillips bay and we have a different research stations from different countries here you can see the chilean station and there's the russian station you have a chinese over there so you can immediately see that there's an international environment three two one antarctica [Music] this is a binational initiative we have scientists from chile and argentina working together for science and to protect antarctica chile and argentina are claiming territory over the same piece of antarctica so one might expect them to compete over that instead these countries have decided to collaborate in antarctica and that's quite a remarkable message i think for the rest of the world collaboration and not competition will be the way to better manage antarctica for the future [Music] [Music] foreign chile and argentina have recently put forward a proposal to protect antarctic peninsula's ocean we've organized this expedition to fill some scientific gaps [Music] for two weeks the expedition will travel from the south shetland islands along the coast of the western antarctic peninsula these scientists will scuba dive in the frigid antarctic waters survey penguin colonies and deploy deep water cameras the data they collect will support the proposal for a marine protected area that argentina and chile have developed in the context of a convention for the conservation of antarctic marine living resources or kamlar the proposal is the result of many years of work in collaboration with other kamlar member states which have also contributed important data [Music] the need for this protection is urgent the ecological balance in the western antarctic peninsula is at a tipping point the antarctic peninsula is one of the most important areas in antarctica and also one of the most fragile areas in antarctica it's an area visited by more than 40 000 tourists a year it's an area where the club fisher is concentrating and also the area where the impact of climate change is very very strong antarctica is ground zero for climate change things are changing faster here than almost anywhere else on earth so it's imperative that we collect good scientific data get good information to help conserve this place now because there's no place like antarctica on earth we're here in fielders bay uh first dive on the expedition first time in antarctica i have no idea what i'm gonna see kind of a mix of trepidation and excitement it's pretty cold out there and it's definitely going to be cold underwater getting up to go diving in the antarctic is not for the faint of heart the amount of gear that we have to put on to actually get in the water remember the water's sub freezing [Music] hyperthermia can set in almost immediately if you're exposed to the elements out here [Music] [Music] having spent much of my career in the tropics this is an entirely new world to me [Music] it's quite a shock to the system when you jump in the water immediately your face goes numb your head goes numb you're really at the limits of the ability of the gear to survive in this harsh environment nothing really prepares you for jumping in freezing water you expect antarctica to be dreary and lifeless not very colorful but once you get down it's it's amazing [Music] [Music] the diversity of light is pretty incredible there are these sea squirts and sponges and soft corals and everything you could possibly imagine [Music] the species who have managed to thrive in this harsh environment evolve together in very stable and very cold conditions over thousands of years [Music] they depend on each other to survive what i saw underwater it's far exceeded my expectations i just i knew it was interesting underwater but i didn't realize how amazing it actually was how life is just not only persisted but thrived in this place it it pretty much blows me away so i'm thrilled to have the experience to come down here and see what's going on and learn from people who've been working in antarctica for a long time are chilling in argentinian colleagues nice yeah good one the scientists from argentina and chile have been documenting the effects of climate change on the ocean here for many years [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] a i've been monitoring sponges trying to assess their responses to climate change mainly to increase temperature they're normally good indicators because when the environment is changing they're not able to escape so far we have been detecting that some sponges might be able to cope with an increasing temperature of about two degrees we don't know what's going to happen if the water temperature increases a few degrees more [Music] things can become out of balance very very quickly if we lose one of those elements the entire ecosystem is in danger of [Music] collapse chile and argentina both have scientific research stations on the western antarctic peninsula they've seen the changes here firsthand argentina is be [Music] [Music] ah though antarctica can seem so vast and remote that it's hard to imagine our impact here history has shown what catastrophic consequences human actions can have sometimes we think about antarctica like a pristine place it's pristine in some areas but in other in other aspects like whales i mean the the exploitation was very severe and we almost brought blue whales and humpback whales to extinction in the early 20th century deception island the caldera of a still active volcano became a massive whale processing [Music] station some of the haunted remains still stand more than 100 years later [Music] so there was a huge operation going on here the smell of this place should have been awful in those days yeah i can imagine that the whole bay was covered by blood so the water was really reddish and you have all these you know dead whales floating around and then they will store the oil coming out of blabber in the big barrels so these are the remains of a dark time here remaining of the dark time yeah anytime i get there and i see the remainings of the weather station it comes to my mind all the pictures of all the whales floating dead in that bay and i always go back to i mean to that sad feeling of the things that we can do wrong [Music] 99 of the blue whale population in antarctica was killed during industrial whaling it's estimated that more than one million whales in all were killed i mean these populations are although they are recovering they didn't recover to the pre-exploitation times so it's very uncertain if they will recover it's very important to remember the history of this place and the over exploitation that was happening here so that we learn from from the past and we don't repeat the same mistake when we look at the management of the antarctic krill fishery which is going on which is the largest fishery actually in the southern ocean and it's key that we do it in the right way because all species that live here in this area they depend on grill because they eat grill something that eats grill there are different ways of killing wildlife in the past we hunted them now we are taking the food that the whales need to survive krill tiny crustaceans that are only a few centimeters long are the basis for all life in antarctica they're also sought after by humans [Music] is not so much how much cruel they're fishing it's about how much when and where fish has been concentrating especially in the last 10 years in certain areas which are very important foraging areas for penguins seals whales and so on without enough krill in these waters the whales and other animals won't survive every summer thousands of humpback whales travel to the ice-free waters of antarctica a journey of more than eight thousand kilometers for some once they arrive they begin a mysterious ritual working together one whale will begin a deep dive followed by several other members of the pod communicating through their eerie song they stay in a tight formation they exhale through their blowholes underwater creating large bubbles that rise to the surface they swim in a careful pattern it's only revealed from above [Music] but this spiral isn't just art it's a bubble net for catching krill [Music] this ingenious cooperative hunting technique herds the krill into a smaller and smaller space then the whales swim up through the spiral scooping up krill by the millions in one massive goal [Music] [Music] an adult humpback whale can eat 1400 kilograms of food a day [Music] this summer krill feast is critical it's the humpback's primary meal for the year allowing them to store up the fat reserves that they live off through the winter when they breed and give birth so knowing where krill congregate is one of the keys to protecting the wildlife [Music] here be krill feed close to the ocean's surface at night but often sink deeper in the water column during the day out of reach of the plankton nets to get a better picture of the krill populations the scientists must go deep too so drop cameras basically it's a robotic camera system that allows us to from any ship or any small boat do a deep sea survey the cameras reveal krill on every deployment at times with more than 100 individuals per frame [Music] significant another clue about the health of the krill population can be found with one of antarctica's most charismatic creatures [Music] m [Music] [Music] reproductive [Music] [Music] okay [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] hmm [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Applause] [Music] um [Music] is [Music] [Music] so [Music] well i can't feel my mouth right now so it's kind of hard to talk but the dive was gorgeous very cool huh yeah see those huge sponges yeah how deep did you go 40 yeah 35 okay that's so different down deeper [Music] [Music] with over 130 dives and almost 90 hours underwater this expedition is adding another chapter in the more than 150 layers of scientific data that argentina and chile have been gathering over the last decade another unique things with this fish is the rate of anthemism it's very high the highest is 88 yeah almost all the fish here are found nowhere else on earth yeah yeah yeah it's pretty amazing it's pretty amazing all of this data informs the joint proposal of a marine protected area that will benefit both the ecosystem and the fisheries marine protected areas have multiple benefits it's not just about conserving what's taking place within those protected areas you're going to have more animals they can produce more offspring that can benefit the areas outside of that protected area and be available to fishing the establishment of a marine protected area in the western antarctic peninsula will only displace the fishing effort to a limited extent and would ensure the health of the krill stock antarctic is a vast area so there's room for strict conservation and also management for the krill fishery a key component to management is monitoring the environment and there are no better partners for this in these waters than chile and argentina for over 20 years these two countries have been jointly performing monitoring operations which provide them with an unmatched knowledge of the region [Music] they control [Music] a [Music] when countries collaborate to put effective protection management and enforcement in place wildlife can recover in the 1960s the international community banned commercial hunting of humpback whales in the southern ocean recent studies suggest the antarctic humpback whale population is now rising by seven to ten percent each year whales are something their animals are very very different it was like you see a whale and you can connect there was a moment that the wear went under our zoria [Music] ah that was a moment of joy and it's like so close to the animal you want it you can touch them you don't but you could and they're just staring at you looking at you it's like like friends [Music] we came here to explore an area that has been proposed for protection by chilean argentina and now i'm more sure than ever that this place has to be protected antarctica can be an example to the world of what the international community can accomplish when it comes together and puts the environment first so [Music] is [Applause] yes [Music] is [Music] from the humble krill all the way up to the majestic humpback the antarctic peninsula is a place of unparalleled beauty of irreplaceable importance [Music] [Applause] [Music] a frozen paradise at the end of the earth so [Music] you

Channel: National Geographic Society

Views: 25,914

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Id: IZzHwQ9F3UA

Length: 38min 37sec (2317 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 14 2020