The ocean. It covers 70 percent of the planet and shelters an incredible diversity of life. It gives us food, jobs, and more than half the oxygen we breathe. We swim and sail it, travel to be near it, and learn from it.

But we’re taking too many fish out of the ocean, polluting it, and making it warmer and more acidic. And less than eight percent of it is protected.

National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala launched the Pristine Seas project in 2008 to explore and help save the last wild places in the ocean. These unique ecosystems are a window into the past, revealing what the ocean looked like before overfishing and pollution took their toll. It is essential that we let the world know that these places exist, that they are threatened, and that help is needed to protect them. Read more.