Sea monsters, giant hammerheads, UFO sightings and ancient sacrificial sites – the Belize Blue Hole has attracted all sorts of mysteries. I can’t wait to voyage down into the largest underwater sinkhole in the world, over 300 metres across and 125 metres deep, and discover some of its secrets.
The Blue Hole is a UNESCO World Heritage site, located along the second largest Barrier Reef system in the world. It has never been mapped and never been plotted. How exciting! You can join Fabien Cousteau and me on our submarine dive to the bottom of the Blue Hole on Discovery Live: Into The Blue Hole.
As a co-founder of Ocean Unite, I will be venturing into the dark depths of the Great Blue Hole to support their work and promote ocean awareness, the importance of strongly protecting at least 30 per cent of the ocean by 2030, and the critical role of science, research and exploration to understand how important the Ocean is to all of us.
The ocean is the least understood, most biologically diverse, and most undervalued of all of Earth’s ecosystems. It produces every second breath we take, has absorbed over 90 per cent of the heat from our carbon emissions, and more than 25 per cent of carbon dioxide from those emissions, and its species are now beginning to feel the impacts of warming and acidification, as are we.
We are seeing more intense extreme storm events like the hurricanes that hit the Caribbean and my home last year, species migrations as fish and whales move, and harm as corals bleach and die and shellfish shells thin and crack. The ocean is a vital partner in the fight to prevent the most severe impacts of climate change – if we look after it, it will help look after us.
Read full blog
©cover image Getty images
