Dispatches from The Outlaw Ocean
its good to keep things in perspective. Here in Australia, when it comes to maritime affairs (and most other things as well), we really still are the lucky country.
Of course there are issues that we need to confront. Such as managing the effects of intense Salmon farming in Tasmania. The state of the Barrier Reef perhaps is the big one, with not only bleaching, but phosphate run off, threatening its long term existence. Some individual species are placed in danger by specific activities such as commercial gill netting on the northern Great Barrier Reef, putting one of the world’s largest populations of dugongs at risk. But most of these issues are starting to be recognised and beginning to be addressed.
And then we remember that we are only concerning ourselves with a tiny proportion of the 360 Million square kms of ocean on our earth. Much of the rest of it has some serious problems. This is where a new ten part documentary series called “Dispatches from the Outlaw Ocean” steps in.
Here’s the Premise of the series…
The high seas are a lawless frontier where crimes such as murder, slavery and environmental destruction are often met with impunity and overlooked by the media. But the ocean is also a place of discovery and reinvention, offering freedom from the constraints of society. This 10-part series follows columnist Ian Urbina who spent over a decade investigating crimes committed on the high seas. The series chronicles a gritty cast of characters from traffickers and smugglers to pirates and vigilante conservationists.
Each episode is about 10 minutes long. They can depressing, confronting, inspiring and very occasionally quite funny.
In his Ian Urbina’s own words this is why we need to watch it.
Two-thirds of the planet is covered by water, and much of that space is ungoverned. Human rights and environmental crimes occur often and with impunity in this realm, because the oceans are sprawling and what laws exist are difficult to enforce.
The global public is woefully unaware of what happens at sea. Journalism about and from the oceans is rare. The result: most landlubbers have little idea of how reliant we are on the people who work the water. Half of the world’s population lives within a hundred miles of the sea, but most people conceive of this space as a liquid desert that we occasionally fly over, a canvas of lighter and darker blues.
Part of the problem is in our heads. The oceans are typically and correctly viewed as a marine habitat. But they are much more than that. They are a workplace, a metaphor, an escape, a prison, a grocery store, a trash can, a cemetery, a bonanza, a tinderbox, an organ, a highway, a depot, a window, an emergency, and, above all, an opportunity. Unless we reckon with this truth, unless we reimagine this domain more broadly, we will continue falling short in governing, protecting, and understanding the oceans.
