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I'm a marine biologist

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here to talk to you about[br]the crisis in our oceans,

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but this time perhaps not[br]with a message you've heard before,

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because I want to tell you[br]that if the survival of the oceans

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depended only on people like me,

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scientists trading in publications,

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we'd be in even worse trouble than we are.

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Because, as a scientist,

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the most important things[br]that I've learned

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about keeping our oceans[br]healthy and productive

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have come not from academia[br]but from fishermen and women

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living in some of the poorest[br]countries on Earth.

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I've learned that as a conservationist,

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the most important question is not,[br]"how do we keep people out?"

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but rather, "how do we make sure[br]that coastal people throughout the world

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have enough to eat?"

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Our oceans are every bit as critical[br]to our own survival

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as our atmosphere,[br]our forests or our soils.

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Their staggering productivity[br]ranks fisheries with farming

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as a mainstay of food production

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for humanity.

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Yet, something's gone badly wrong.

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We're accelerating[br]into an extinction emergency,

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one that my field has so far[br]failed abysmally to tackle.