If Volvo has done its math correctly, the ocean might go away one day. In the worst-case scenario, it will vanish pretty soon. At least that’s what the carmaker predicts if we continue to be reckless when it comes to plastic overuse and the ocean. Now, there’s another kid in town who is as realistic as Volvo is: Sea Shepherd France. The famous NGO believes that if we don’t reduce our fish consumption, the ocean will cease to function. According to the self-described non-profit, marine conservation organization, we won’t make it without the ocean because it is an entity that connects us to life. So, we have to start treating it with respect!
The ocean is screaming for help. And the first person to hear its “voice” was French free-diver Guillaume Néry, who, during one of his dives encountered a strange sound in the waters. He then published the video of the noise on social media, which triggered sea lovers and influencers to positively react to it. As it spread across social networks, the strange sound started to raise many questions. What is it? Where does it come from? What does it mean?
TBWA\PARIS advertising agency wants to shed a light on what the sound symbolizes. The unusual noise is a ‘school’ of different sea sounds: a harpooned whale, pilot whales hunted down in the Faroe Isles, dolphins caught in fishermen’s nets, and frenetic, agitated schools of fish packed together in trawlers’ nets. Basically, these are ocean creatures that are crying for help. It is inaudible, invisible, and speaks about the atrocities that unfold in the deep waters of the ocean.
When all these sounds get gathered, sorted, amplified, processed, and juxtaposed they give birth to a one-of-a-kind, sad symphony: the “Sound of Sea.” We won’t sugar-coat it – it’s an SOS from the ocean, to which you can have a listen here. Processed by the Paris-based agency, the sound was emitted from a strange spherical beacon sunk in the deep waters of the ocean off the coast of La Rochelle. This is the place where Sam Simon is on a mission to combat excessive fishing which often catches dolphins in their nets.
The idea behind the creepy sound was to raise people’s awareness of the urgent need to reduce our fish consumption. We, the public, have to stand up, as political measures are too weak and too slow. It is time to take real action and rethink how we consume the ocean’s best-kept treasures. It is time to stop treating it as an inexhaustible pantry. We also should change our behavior pretty soon, as scientists’ predictions are alarming: according to the United Nations, if nothing is done to curb the phenomenon of overfishing, fish populations will collapse by 2048. And without fish in the oceans, life will cease to exist.
The sound of Sea comes as a tool the ocean can use to speak to us, humans. So, it’s no longer a man speaking to a man. It’s the ocean speaking to us directly, using its own ‘language’, asking us to stop whatever we are doing that is harming it. The waters use words that we can actually understand even though this is the first time when we get to hear it. It’s a scream, a signal. Basically, it’s an SOS. Will you answer?