The Sheba brand, part of the Mars family and more familiar as a brand of cat food, has announced a new documentary, Reef Builders, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
The new documentary, announced in March this year, was premiered at a ‘teal-carpet’ event hosted by Sheba at The Natural History Museum in London on 10 April.
Reef Builders spotlights the story of the Sheba Hope Grows initiative, one of the world’s largest coral reef restoration projects, first launched by the brand in 2021 as a Mars Sustainable Solutions (MSS) programme.
The documentary, directed and produced by Stephen Shearman and featuring Hawai’ian actor and environmental advocate Auli’i Cravalho (voice of Disney’s Moana), opens with an overview of the project’s largest success story to date, the restoration of HOPE Reef in Sulawesi, Indonesia.
The Hope Reef story is told through the lens of a local Bontosuan fisherman named Samaila, who has witnessed the massive loss of coral from the reef and its subsequent regeneration through a construction formed from a simple, but ‘revolutionary’ steel structure referred to as the ‘Reef Star’.
Reef Builders also visits Lamu in Kenya, Australia’s Moore Reef, and Auli’i’s native O’ahu, Hawai’i, to explore how the MSS team, led by Chief Marine Scientist Professor David Smith, partners with coastal communities and NGOs to expand the network of coral restoration programmes.
‘I’ve witnessed decades of coral reef devastation due to rapidly warming oceans, over-fishing and over-tourism,’ said Prof Smith. ‘Restoring the world’s coral reefs isn’t something that can be undertaken alone – it requires the ocean community, businesses and consumers from all corners of the earth to unite around the reef builders and scale their efforts.
‘While we’ve seen promising success since the inception of the program, we still have a long way to go on this journey. Gaining the support of all who view this documentary will help us further the program immeasurably.’
According to the MSS Impact Report, 2024, the MSS team and its partners have installed more than 87,000 Reef Stars, which have approximately 1.3 million corals attached to them. As well as providing an insight into the coral restoration programme, the Reef Builders documentary will help raise funds for the initiative.
Between 13 April and 29 June, Amazon will donate US$1 for every hour streamed in the US – up to a maximum of $100,000 – to the Kuleana Coral Restoration foundation in Hawai’i, and CA$1 for every hour streamed in Canada – up to a maximum of $30,000 – to the Corales de Paz reef protection project in Colombia.
‘Growing up in the islands of Hawaiʻi taught me just how lucky we are to live in harmony with our oceans,’ said Auli’i Cravalho, actor, environmental advocate and Reef Builders associate producer.
‘It’s easy for me to want to protect my own backyard, but this film allows audiences around the world to come together to learn about the vital importance of coral reef restoration.
‘The huge platform that Prime Video provides will allow those both near and far from the restoration conversation to have a front row seat not only to coral reef degradation and restoration, but also the profound impact on local coastal communities.’
To learn more about the documentary and the Sheba Hope Grows programme, head to SHEBA.com/Sustainability
The post SHEBA’s new ‘Reef Builders’ documentary comes to Amazon Prime appeared first on DIVE Magazine.
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