Sir David Attenborough’s new documentary Ocean delivers a haunting view of industrial fishing, placing the audience in the path of bottom trawl nets from a fish’s perspective. As massive nets scour the seabed, dragging chains obliterate fragile ecosystems of sponges, corals, and seagrass. With powerful visuals and a deeply personal message, Attenborough highlights how we have relied upon the sea while failing to protect it from our own excesses. A century of increasingly destructive practices, such as bottom trawling and shellfish dredging, has left vast areas of the seabed devastated.
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The film uncovers how these fishing techniques became widespread. Since the 1920s, “rock-hopper” gear enabled nets to trawl rough seabeds, once safe havens for marine life. Centuries of tradition have normalised trawling, despite its clear ecological toll. Parliamentary records from 1376 already show calls to ban it. Yet trawling continued, erasing marine animal forests such as oyster reefs, now almost entirely gone. Ironically, modern conservation efforts were skewed by the degraded seabeds early divers mistook for natural habitats, delaying real protection.
Attenborough reveals that many marine protected areas, including in Europe, still allow trawling and dredging within their boundaries. This has slowed recovery efforts and reinforced the false belief that such habitats are resilient. However, in areas where bottom trawling has been excluded — like near the Isle of Arran — seabed life has returned in just a few years. Recovering ecosystems not only boost biodiversity but also replenish nearby fishing grounds, supporting the case for less destructive methods.
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Perhaps most crucially, the film explores the seabed’s role in storing carbon. Left untouched, organic matter and sediment on the ocean floor can lock away carbon for millennia. But trawling disturbs these deposits, potentially accelerating climate change by releasing carbon back into the atmosphere. Attenborough’s message is clear: protecting marine carbon stores is essential for meeting net zero targets. With growing public awareness, the time has come to turn truth into policy and preserve what remains of our blue planet.
