Protecting the oceans should be our priority

A large whale apparently devours more than 5 tons of krill and small fish per day. One can only imagine the consequences of protecting such a big eater alone could have on the ecosystem.

"Oceans," a documentary film (by director Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud) that is about to make its premiere, made me acutely aware of how little I know about the oceans.

One of the film's most impressive scenes shows dolphins leaping in and out of water. Apparently the scene was shot from a speedboat traveling abreast of the dolphins and the cameras had special devices attached to avoid blurring.

Overhead, low-flying brown boobies readied themselves to nosedive into the water to capture fleeing sardines that had neared the surface in hopes of escaping the dolphins.

All sorts of marine life, large and small, were caught on torpedo cameras towed by boats and by cameras installed on drone helicopters. Watching scenes never before seen even by fishermen and sailors, I promised myself to protect this "ocean-blue theater" and its cast of players.

Pollutants from land are now reaching the deepest areas of the sea. With carbon dioxide in the atmosphere mixing into the seawater, the oceans' acidity is increasing.

The Galapagos islands of South America are famed for their unique ecosystem. Already here, global warming and overfishing have apparently driven a type of 24-armed starfish and a kind of pearl-spot chromis fish to extinction.

"Umi" (The ocean), a novel by Yasushi Inoue (1907-1991), contains this passage: "A poet once wrote that the ocean is a large sheet of blue fabric. That probably makes the beach a strip of white lace."

These words conjure an image of pounding surf. The billowing "fabric" is dyed gray, with a strip of "white lace" lashing furiously against it. The ocean is like a gigantic life form.

The film's narration goes, "Human wisdom is polluting the oceans." Because we humans lord it over the land and because the oceans seem all too powerful, we have been too indifferent to their debilitation.

Unlawful actions against research whaling do nothing but distract people's attention from the true peril. It is time to repay the oceans with our wisdom.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 8