Summary

What do you know about the South Pacific? The words conjure up images of blue water and swaying palms, idyllic beaches and exotic human histories. We’ve all heard of Hawaii, Fiji and Tahiti but how many people in the Western world could place the Solomon Islands on a map or have any idea where Vanuatu is? Welcome to the real, immense and surprising South Pacific.

Unimaginably vast, the Pacific is 99% water and only 1% land. You could fit the whole of the world’s land masses into it and still have enough room for another Africa! It stretches from the heat of the tropics to the sub-Antarctic. Coral gardens thrive in its warmest waters and icebergs float in its coldest.

The distance between the islands can be huge – literally hundreds or thousands of miles – yet these were the journeys that all lifeforms had to make to colonise these remote places, encircled by the ocean.

Isolation does curious things to plants, animals and even people. They evolve and adapt in strange ways. Witness flesh-eating caterpillars, giant crabs capable of opening coconuts, vampire bugs with antifreeze in their veins, geckos that can breed without any need of a male, frogs that have never been tadpoles and the humans that combine hand-made kites and spider webs to catch fish.

In human terms, the ocean journeys of the Polynesians were the most incredible ever taken; navigating thousands of miles in mere canoes. They had reached Hawaii even before the Vikings launched a ship. The last landmass to be colonised by people was in the South Pacific and that was New Zealand, just 800 years ago!

The Pacific is the most volcanically active region on earth. Islands can emerge without warning from beneath the surface of the ocean, only to face a never-ending battle against a relentlessly pounding surf. Stunning time-lapse and aerial shots reveal the processes of the life and death of these atolls.

What of the future for the South Pacific? Introduced species are running rampant; global warming and rising sea levels will soon inundate islands; the ocean is being over-fished and species like sharks are fast disappearing. However, could it be that the tide is turning?