▶FULL DOCUMENTARIES | http://planetdoc.tv/playlist-full-documentaries ▶ Spanish video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEVOEscMXkY Ten million years ago, the Mediterranean Sea basin was an enormous desert valley, with tall mountains forming huge canyons and hyper-saline lakes. The Mediterranean we know today was formed a little over 5 million years ago, when the rock dike that had formed in the Strait of Gibraltar collapsed, and the Atlantic came roaring in. Creating the largest waterfall in history, what took millennia to become arid, filled up again in just a few years. Nowadays, the Strait of Gibraltar is still an indispensible source that maintains the levels of the Mediterranean, since it loses more water to evaporation than the amount that rivers empty into it. In the early XXI century, many species are in a state of great imbalance due to incessant human pressure, pollution and overfishing. But this young sea - in geologic terms – is surprisingly fertile, functioning as a global organism made up of millions of living beings closely linked to one another. Animals that range from the mythical colossi to the smallest of invertebrates form a chain in which each link is indispensible for the whole to function properly. The diverse biocenoses are closely linked by the various forms of life that live in its different stratums. Many species, forced by seasonal migrations, cross over its waters or settle temporarily in search of food and mate. Others, who inhabit them, wait for optimal reproductive conditions. Alchemy is produced in its warm waters; the most basic nutrients, gently swayed by the currents, make up the breeding ground for life. All of these beings live together, all cogs in the wheel of the macro organism that is the Mediterranean Sea, known in Ancient Times as Mare Nostrum. In this enclosed sea, there is a prodigious biological diversity, with a high degree of closely linked endemism. Unfortunately, many species are in grave danger due to pollution, overfishing and the environment’s devastation. Over the last few decades, we’ve almost done away with a natural inheritance millions of years old. Few are the mythical colossi that huff near these coasts inspiring legends anymore. The ancient sea of the Romans, the “Mare Nostrum”...isn’t it still our sea? The sea that washes over three continents, that has seen the birth of hundreds of cultures since the origin of man and that still feeds us... It’s in our hands to learn from the mistakes and change our mindset, substituting our predatory attitude with another that is more sustainable and less aggressive with the environment. After thousands of years supplying enormous resources to empires that have ruled its coasts at its expense, we now better understand the biological function of this small ocean. But we continue on without valuing the importance of its incredible biodiversity, without which, the sea wouldn’t be more than water and salt. And us? ... Who knows what would have become of us without our sea.

• published: 17 Apr 2019
• views: 32155