National Geographic's Pristine Seas Explores Waters Unaffected by Humans

Posted on September 30, 2015

National Geographic's new book Pristine Seas explores waters completely unaffected by human activity. The book is written by National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Dr. Enric Sala. It features a foreword by Leonardo DiCaprio.

Dr. Sala created the Pristine Seas program with National Geographic in 2008 to help find, explore and protect that last wild places in Earth's oceans. The book covers ten of these rare pristine seas. National Geographic says leaders in different countries have been inspired by Sala's work to fight to establish marine reserves in these waters.

The book features essays and rich photographs about these rare marine environments. Some of them include shark-rich waters off Costa Rica's Coco Island and walrus herds in Russia's remote frozen Franz Josef Land.

When Sala was young he wanted to be a diver in Jacques Cousteau's boat. He was born too late for that career but he became a marine biologist and professor at the University of California. He studied the impact of humans and the oceans and came to the realization that he was "writing the obituary of ocean life." He left academia and now travels the world to explore remote ocean locations in need of protection.

Sala says in the book's introduction, "We need to save these pristine places before it is too late, before they vanish, unnoticed."

Here is a video about the Pristine Seas project: