New Caledonia: diving in the world's last pristine reefs

Brut America

This marine park in New Caledonia is home to a significant part of the world's last pristine reefs. Alexis Rosenfeld Photographe is one of the few photographers who's been allowed to explore this highly sensitive area. Here's the amazing footage he brought back with him.

Transcript

00:00As soon as we dive in the water, there are a multitude of sharks that come

00:06because they don't know the man, but they come to discover me, to discover us.

00:13And then we go down along the deck, we are often carried by a strong current

00:17and it's a ballet of carangues that dance around gorgons and crinoids

00:22that are placed and fixed on the bottom and on a coral area

00:27and most of the time absolutely wonderful.

00:29At least to enter these ecosystems is to go and photograph the most virgin area of the Earth

00:36as if we were discovering it in the time of prehistoric men.

00:57Music

01:26Here we come back from this area north of New Caledonia, which is the Archipelago of Entrecasteaux.

01:31It is an absolutely wonderful archipelago and which is protected by its remoteness

01:36because it is still more than 300 km north of New Caledonia

01:39and also by its status of protection.

01:41There are different levels of protection, including full reserves,

01:45that is to say that no one, except special permission, has the right to access, to dive, to fish.

01:51It is an extraordinary privilege.

01:53I am one of the few, if not the only, authorized to do,

01:57thanks to my job as a photographer and journalist,

01:59to access this area which is extremely protected and prohibited by law.

02:06Music

02:15So this is my diving equipment, my respirator, it's a recycler

02:19and it's a device that allows me to mix the gases and use only the gas that I metabolize.

02:27So with these two little bottles at the back of 2 liters,

02:31I can stay 3-4 hours underwater without making bubbles,

02:35have an approach in the ocean that is absolutely not invasive,

02:39that is to say that I can really approach the animals very close without any impact.

02:47This is my box to take underwater images.

02:51And I put inside a camera that is quite classic,

02:56which has all the controls on the back.

03:00So this is what I did the day before, before going in.

03:05It's a huge tuna in the tank.

03:08The extraordinary thing about this area is that I have a giant tuna that comes in contact.

03:15We are in the magic of nature, in the magic of biodiversity,

03:18and in what is unique in fact.

03:20And it's true that to have 40-50 sharks that turn around us,

03:26that have no kind of aggressiveness,

03:29when we have banks with thousands of carangues that are dragged around us,

03:34and as we see on the video, they come to rub against me.

03:36It's extraordinary.

03:37And when I have a tuna 1.5 meters long that comes to see who I am,

03:41it's still not so bad here.

03:43It's important to preserve these places as intact as they are today.

03:48It's a duty.

03:51The presence of these great predators is what determines the state of the ocean.

03:55Because they are present, because they are in the shade,

03:57because there are sharks, because there are tuna, because there are huge carangues,

04:00it is because there is the system and the entire food chain underneath.

04:05The coral reef is not just corals,

04:07it is the whole of a dynamic ecosystem that creates biodiversity and an incredible life.

04:13It is the assembly of these corals with their anemones,

04:17the fish that live around them and the whole of this food chain

04:20that allows to create this ecosystem.

04:22It's important to say, I'm going to tell you, look at what is extraordinary.

04:26Look at how it is underwater and look,

04:28by protecting what we can do extraordinary.

04:32The ocean is the future of the planet, so there is a need,

04:34an obligation today to take drastic measures to protect the ocean

04:38and to protect these ecosystems.

04:40It is first of all a political decision,

04:43it is not a political decision, it is a political decision.

04:46It is first of all a political decision,

04:48like the New Caledonian Falls,

04:50by creating these reserves and natural parks of the coral sea

04:53and integral reserves,

04:55monitoring them and then having a dynamic of education

04:58of the population and our children,

05:01when it is to them that we are going to leave this land and this ocean as a heritage.

05:16For more UN videos visit www.un.org

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