Like his father before him, Britain’s Prince William is continuing the fight to save the planet. The founder of the environmentally focused Earshot Prize took up the work that King Charles III launched long before he became king and ran with it—most recently, with a one-two punch spotlighting the fragile state of ocean life.
The latest campaign launched Saturday, when Prince William shared a brief interview he conducted with David Attenborough on his social media platforms. In the video, William is more of a student than a dignitary, asking the 99-year-old conservationist, “From what you’ve obviously seen over the years, what states would you say the oceans are in right now?”
“The awful thing is that it’s hidden from you and from me and most people,” Attenborough said, admitting that he was “appalled” when he first saw the underwater footage for the film.
“What we have done to the deep ocean floor is just unspeakably awful. I mean, if you did anything remotely like it on land everybody would be up in arms.”
This isn’t the first time William and Attenborough have spoken about the state of the earth. Attenborough was a longtime friend of William’s grandmother, Queen Elizabeth. William introduced Attenborough to wife Kate Middleton and children Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis in 2020, when he screened his film A Life on Our Planet for the family on the grounds of Kensington Palace.
The interview, intended to promote Attenborough’s new documentary, Ocean, was filmed in London’s Royal Festival Hall in early May, but was only released online this weekend. So William had abundant time to mull over Attenborough’s warnings prior to his speech Sunday at the Blue Economy and Finance Forum in Monaco, where he shared his fears about the state of the seas.
William’s short and somber speech at the Grimaldi Forum, which he delivered in English and French, was as much a plea for investment in conservation efforts as a warning.
“Watching human activity reduce beautiful sea forests to barren deserts at the base of our oceans is heartbreaking,” he said. But life underwater is “diminishing before our eyes” and requires work “on a global, national and local level.”
It’s just a matter of time before the crisis underwater makes it to dry land, he noted. “The truth is that healthy oceans are essential to all life on earth. They generate half of the world’s oxygen, regulate our climate and provide food for more than three billion people.”
“All too often, it can feel distant and disconnected from our everyday lives, allowing us to forget just how vital it is,” he said. “We must realize the potential of the blue economy for our ecosystems, our economies and our communities.”
“For many, it is an urgent wake-up call to just what is going on in our oceans. But it can no longer be a matter of ‘out of sight, out of mind.’”
William’s Monaco speech was delivered just a day before the kickoff of the U.N. Ocean Conference in Nice, France. Sunday was also World Ocean Day, an international day of action in support of the sea; Attenborough’s well-reviewed documentary on the topic was released on June 8 as part of the effort.
“If this film does anything, if it just shifts public awareness, it will be very, very important,” Attenborough told William as they discussed the documentarian’s latest work. “I can only hope that people who see it will recognize that something must be done before we destroy this great treasure.”
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