For years, the ocean has been
what we've lived off, what we've relied on.
When the ocean is healthy, our people are healthy.
Seventeen-year-old Hereiti lives in Rarotonga Island...
one of the Cook Islands in the Pacific Ocean.
As a Polynesian person, I have a connection to it.
Since we first started voyaging across it,
it's been the lifeblood of our islands and our culture.
But with rising sea levels and pollution
I feel like that history that we've had
for thousands of years might end up being lost.
The UN wants to reduce marine pollution of all kinds by 2025…
and increase efforts to protect marine ecosystems.
Hereiti is visiting her favourite beach, now littered with dead coral.
This beach is a very significant place to many people
who live on the island, and it's a place many families like to come to.
It's an experience that is ruined by the amount of unhealthy coral
that is here, and what that says about the health of our ocean
and the health of our lagoon.
She is meeting Dr Teina Rongo, a marine biologist…
who is concerned about coral reef depletion due to climate change.
Reefs are pretty much our first line of defence.
They protect us from storms, big waves, cyclones.
They basically dissipate the energy of the wave.
If we didn't have this reef here that's been built
we won't have that protection, so all the homes
and businesses along the coast,
they'd be completely pulverised by the impact of the storms.
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is absorbed by the oceans…
causing the water to become more acidic, destroying coral.
But coral reef depletion isn't the only threat to the island…
rising sea levels result in strong wave action and coastal flooding…
causing the coast to erode.
We're seeing a lot of coastal erosion happening
on all our islands here in the Cook Islands
particularly around the northern islands
because they are low-lying atolls [islands built on coral].
We might have to consider relocating to higher areas,
so more inland, and abandon the coast.
There are fears that the northern islands…
could become uninhabitable due to the coastal erosion.
Specific islands in the northern group are where my family comes from.
They lived there before they moved to the main island of Rarotonga.
If we were to lose the northern group islands
then all the people there, they would have to find
other places to live
and they'd have to change their lifestyle completely
and when you lose the land that is home to you,
you lose a lot of the culture as well and a lot of your history.
So what can be done to protect the oceans?
I'm not very optimistic for the future of our ocean
and I see that a lot of the behaviours and the attitudes
that we are continuing to do or that we have
no interest in changing
are going to affect the relationship we can have with the ocean.
I'd like to see a change in the attitude that people have
and the morals, the values and the way people view the ocean.
Because once we all begin to respect the ocean
and realise how beautiful it is,
then we will be able to help it stay healthy
for as long as it needs to.
Which is hopefully forever.
Project 17 was made in partnership with the Open University.