‘Chasing Coral’ features Hawaii expert, reefs

Jeff Orlowski has an urgent message to share about the state of coral reefs here and around the world: They are vanishing at an unprecedented rate due to climate change.

In “Chasing Coral,” now streaming on Netflix, the film director and his crew use time-lapse technology and breathtaking photography to reveal the changes in the underwater world off the coasts of the Caribbean islands, Hawaii and Australia.

The 87-minute documentary, winner of the Sundance Film Festival’s Audience Award, features Ruth Gates, research professor and director of the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology at Coconut Island in Kaneohe Bay, and footage from the Waiopae tide pools on the southeastern coast of Hawaii island.

“It was one of the most spectacular sites I’ve ever been to,” Orlowski said in an email. “The water is crystal clear, you’re next to volcanic rock everywhere, and the corals are so beautiful and colorful. It’s some of my favorite footage in the film.”

“Chasing Coral” is Orlowski’s follow-up to “Chasing Ice,” which offered visual proof of melting ice caps. The new documentary examines the “coral bleaching” phenomenon, or the death of coral resulting from warmer ocean temperatures.

Gates, who was tapped by the film crew for advice on setting up a time-lapse camera underwater, said most people do not realize that corals are complex, live animals — not plants or rocks.

“They’re extraordinary organisms,” she said. “They have tiny little plants that live in their tissues. Together, they’re able to put down skeletons that create reefs that can be seen from space.”

The coral reef provides habitat for many species important to our food supply, she said, and acts as a natural sea wall that protects islands from storm surf. Using a special microscope from Gates’ institute, the film crew captured a sequence of images demonstrating the coral-bleaching process.

Gates said the timing of the documentary is crucial because we are at a “tipping point.”

“We have already lost about 50 percent of the world’s reefs to climate change-related temperature disturbances,” she said. “The loss of 50 percent of the world’s reefs happened in obscure ways, silently in this blue blanket.”

The film, she said, unveils the underwater crisis unfolding all over the planet while also offering beautiful visual images of what we risk losing in the next 25 to 30 years if nothing is done about it. A side benefit of the film is that scientists like her now have access to some 650 hours of underwater footage for their research.