Ocean with David Attenborough

The first 25 minutes of Ocean with David Attenborough are breathtaking-filled with stunning visuals and fascinating, little-known facts about marine life, much like Attenborough's other masterpieces.

But then came the industrial bottom-trawling scene-and I was overwhelmed. Watching the destruction of the ocean floor was brutal. It was not just shocking; it was heartbreaking. I had to stop watching. It hurt deeply.

I'm not sure if I can bring myself to finish the documentary. As a human being, I felt ashamed. We are destroying everything that is beautiful and vital. This film is important, but it's also painful. A must-watch-but not an easy one.

To me, this feels like the most important documentary of our time. Whilst watching, I felt the full spectrum of emotions - despair, awe, wonder, fear - to name of few. The biggest emotion I am left with, however, is hope. I have complete admiration for Sir David Attenborough and his significant contributions to our world. The message in this documentary is a gift to the planet and I hope it is received with the importance and respect it deserves.

The documentary was visually beautiful and the musical score moved me as much as the message. In my opinion, the best pieces of television vibrate within you long after you've watched them - I am still fizzing with thought and emotion hours after watching.

How important the oceans are, the lifeforms within. How much it matters to our existence.

How little we, still, even now, understand.

Yet as a whole no-one cares.

The fisherman complain, our nets used to be filled, well 8 billion people harvested the way they do will cause that. You can't change to old methods with 8 billion - and increasing remember, people.

As well there is the mining, the dredging, the minerals, everything.

We are the authors of our own destruction, the planet won't care, it will go on, new lifeforms will spread across it, but we, the stupid ones will be gone and nothing should mourn us either.

This is one of those films that really does resonate. Using some phenomenal archive photography of the realm beneath the sea, Sir David Attenborough narrates a story of devastation, desperation and ultimately optimism as he takes us on a journey around the globe evaluating the damage caused to the Earth's oceans by a mankind who has treated this vast resource with contempt ever since industrialisation enabled us to ignore the protective forces of nature and pretty much fish at will. Some of the imagery here is truly breathtaking. It's beautiful, colourful and vibrant with creatures that look every inch as if they came straight out of science fiction. It's not just the sheer variety of life that we see that takes your breath away, though. The effects of the trawlers scarifying the scallop beds or the coral reefs renders them akin to a waste ground after a bomb has been dropped on it. The ruin is profound and quite frankly upsetting. Our continuing reliance on cheap and abundant food for ourselves and our pets is compromising the very existence of species that have existed in harmony with nature (and even humanity) for millennia. In his usually potent but understated manner, Sir David makes his points without resort to hyperbole and superlatives and as he lays out the scale of this problem before us he offers us hope that there is still time, should we take a longer-term view, for us to leave well alone and allow this crucial part of the planet's infrastructure to recover and assist with the fight against global warming. The message is clear as a bell, but it isn't laboured by the dialogue. It is illustrated by odd looking crabs, seahorses and magnificent blue whales. The production is top class and as an educational piece of cinema, this will take some beating - especially if you can catch it all on a big screen.

I was lucky enough to view this film in the presence of the director and a panel of European dignitaries, scientists and policy makers. I cried. Trawlers have destroyed the oceans, with government subsidies! Insane. But the cinematography was beyond beautiful. I cried at the beauty, despair and glimmer of hope the movie portrayed. David Attenborough is the world's best narrator and lover of nature. At 99, he has inspired generations and I hope, like Carl Sagan still inspires today all things of the Cosmos, Attenborough will continue to do so after he has been gone. And like Sagan's 21st century inheritor, Neil Degrasse Tyson has continued his legacy successfully, I still cannot imagine who can take Attenborough's place yet. He is legend. Pure visual and intellectual delight. Thank you for making these films. They inspire.