Prince William and Kate join royals for poignant service in London
Princess Kate and Prince William joined the royal family for a poignant VE Day church service to remember those who tragically lost their lives in World War II.
On this day 80 years ago, thousands took to the streets to celebrate the end of six years of bloodshed when Nazi Germany signed an unconditional surrender, reports The Sun.
And today, the King and Queen have joined the Prince and Princess of Wales at Westminster Abbey in London to remember the fallen.
The royal family – alongside British prime minister Sir Keir Starmer – joined the nation in two minutes of silence at noon before the service began.
A number of World War Two veterans were in attendance, as were the speakers of the UK House of Commons and Lords, who made the traditional walk from parliament to the church shortly before the service started.
Former British prime ministers Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, David Cameron and John Major were all spotted entering the Abbey this morning.
The King and Prince of Wales laid wreaths at the Grave of the Unknown Warrior – a monument to an unidentified soldier who died in World War One.
The King's wreath has been adorned with the message: 'We will never forget,' while Prince William's includes a handwritten touching message from himself and Princess Kate.
It reads: 'For those who made the ultimate sacrifice during the Second World War, we will remember them.'
The King and Queen, along with members of the royal family, met veterans in the congregation as they walked in.
An address from the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, began the ceremony.
The prime minister also performed a reading during the special service.
Representatives began handing out white roses to members of the audience, after the great-great-grandson of Winston Churchill, Alexander Churchill, 10, lit a candle of peace at the service.
After the ceremony finished, Charles and Camilla spoke to veterans around the hall in touching scenes.
Queen Camilla then lead other members of the royal family in laying flowers at the Innocent Victims' Memorial – in place to remember civilians who tragically died or suffered torture during wars around the world.
Alongside the veterans and members of the royal family at the service were members of the Cabinet and other representatives of parliament.
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ABC News
11 hours ago
- ABC News
Who took the photo of 'Napalm Girl' ?
11h ago 11 hours ago Sat 7 Jun 2025 at 9:30pm Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Play Duration: 20 minutes 50 seconds 20 m
The Advertiser
14 hours ago
- The Advertiser
Salvaging stories from the region's watery graveyards
MANY years ago, on today's Kooragang Island, I saw an unusual event. It was the noisy demolition with explosives of old, abandoned wrecks in what was then called 'Rotten Row'. There were a series of loud bangs, swirling smoke and an acrid smell as mud and twisted chunks of metal flew everywhere in this soon-to-be-forgotten maritime graveyard. This tidal channel, an old creek really, was where worn-out old tugs, barges and small punts had been rusting away for decades. With their working days over, the vessels had been floated in there at high tide and abandoned long ago. This was probably in the late 1960s. There may have been up to a dozen obsolete craft in the inlet, probably on Moscheto Island, on an elbow of the Hunter River's south channel to the north-east of the then Newcastle Steelworks. The islands' reclamation scheme was then well under way to create more industrial land on what soon became today's Kooragang. With the derelict port vessels now flattened, the site was soon smothered in sand dredged up and pumped ashore from harbour dredging. These days, this port land is just part of our hidden history, with no traces left to remember where this once familiar ship dumping ground once was. It's a far cry from today's Myall River around Tea Gardens, where the remains of some old vessels of a different sort, surprisingly, still survive. Around Witts Island, for example, eight beached wrecks rotting away have been identified. They include three 'retired' Engel store boats and two droghers (paddlewheel-powered timber cargo punts). But there may have been once 11 boats abandoned locally in river mangroves. But there is a second Port Stephens' watery graveyard nearby, which is often largely overlooked. The site's at the entrance to the Myall River in the shallows of Pindimar (Duckhole) Bay. Here, there were once perhaps six abandoned ship hulks, including the biggest paddle steamer to ever ferry commuters between Sydney and Manly. But more about that shortly. Hulks were towed off Pindimar in the 1940s to serve as timber storage hubs, or floating wharves, awaiting ocean-going ships. This provided a quick turnaround to load timber cargoes and depart Port Stephens, as these larger craft would have had great difficulty entering the Myall River. A launch would then carry waterside workers from Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest out to load the timber from the offshore hulks directly onto the waiting vessels. Timber harvesting in Port Stephens continued for about 130 years, having begun in the 1820s. The peak of the massive timber business seems to have been in the 1920s and 1930s. River transport, however, then gradually declined after the introduction of more inland roads and timber lorries. This Myall River cargo trade though was briefly revived in World War II when petrol rationing forced timber-jinkers off the road from Bulahdelah and elsewhere. Meanwhile, when the days of the timber transfer from hulks to waiting vessels were over, the vessels were abandoned or scuttled. Five Pindimar hulks were finally identified by authors Brian A. Engel, Janis Winn (nee Motum) and John Wark in a local book printed in 2000. They were the steel hulk of the ship Sydney, plus a big, old double-ended Manly ferry called Brighton, a former lighthouse tender called the Governor Musgrave, a wooden steamer named Durobie or Deroby and East Star, a converted trawler. A local district identity, Horace Motum, operated a registered oyster lease on one of the hulks after the former timber trade vessel fell into disuse. When two NSW Heritage marine archaeologists, Tim Smith and David Nutley, officially surveyed the area in 1999, they identified at least three hulks, earlier beached for being hazardous, standing out in the shallows. They could positively identify only the double-ended steamer, Brighton, but also mentioned a sixth vessel, Bingara. Most of the hulks were severely stripped for scrap metal in the 1970s, leaving only rusting shells. The former iron steamer Brighton was once the largest and most luxurious Sydney ferry operating from Circular Quay. It's hard to imagine now, but she was the pride of the Manly ferries. She was 220ft long (67 metres), weighed 417 gross tons and could carry 1200 passengers at a time. Her plush interior was striking. This included velvet seats, polished woodwork and cages of singing canaries. Built in Scotland in 1883 as the Port Jackson, then renamed as Brighton, she's probably one of the best-known hulks in the Tea Gardens area, although now unrecognisable. She was abandoned in the Pindimar Bay scuttling area in 1916. Noted author and Sydney ferry expert, the late Graeme Andrews, said the Brighton made a hazardous 89-day ocean voyage out to Australia in 1883, including running aground three times. Andrews also said the vessel suffered storm damage off Columbo and ran out of fuel as she finally approached Sydney Heads, "obliging her crew to burn her protective wooden ocean cladding - or was that to avoid a timber import tax?" And now comes possibly the oddest story of all the timber storeships - and she's not at Pindimar. She's the former Aussie warship HMAS Psyche, sunk and now broken up on the muddy bottom of Salamander Bay across the waterway. Commissioned in 1899 as the light cruiser HMAS Psyche, she saw service in World War I operating to capture Germany's Pacific colonies. Later, she joined our RAN but was finally sold in 1922. Our once proud, now almost forgotten, cruiser was then dismantled over two years, converted into a mere floating hulk, a timber lighter, used to temporarily store long power poles up at Port Stephens. She'd been there only a few months when a sudden gale caused her to turn turtle and sink at her moorings in December 1924. What followed was later described as the region's biggest and most successful salvage operation for years in what was then 56 feet (16.9 metres) of water off present Corlette. Surprisingly, this one vessel's cargo alone comprised 2044 hardwood poles about 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 metres) long and about 18 inches in diameter, plus wooden girders, all bound for New Zealand The Newcastle Herald of June 2, 1925, reported that the salvaging of timber was finished, with 1900 poles recovered, with the rest lost forever, buried in deep silt beneath the submerged former warship. MANY years ago, on today's Kooragang Island, I saw an unusual event. It was the noisy demolition with explosives of old, abandoned wrecks in what was then called 'Rotten Row'. There were a series of loud bangs, swirling smoke and an acrid smell as mud and twisted chunks of metal flew everywhere in this soon-to-be-forgotten maritime graveyard. This tidal channel, an old creek really, was where worn-out old tugs, barges and small punts had been rusting away for decades. With their working days over, the vessels had been floated in there at high tide and abandoned long ago. This was probably in the late 1960s. There may have been up to a dozen obsolete craft in the inlet, probably on Moscheto Island, on an elbow of the Hunter River's south channel to the north-east of the then Newcastle Steelworks. The islands' reclamation scheme was then well under way to create more industrial land on what soon became today's Kooragang. With the derelict port vessels now flattened, the site was soon smothered in sand dredged up and pumped ashore from harbour dredging. These days, this port land is just part of our hidden history, with no traces left to remember where this once familiar ship dumping ground once was. It's a far cry from today's Myall River around Tea Gardens, where the remains of some old vessels of a different sort, surprisingly, still survive. Around Witts Island, for example, eight beached wrecks rotting away have been identified. They include three 'retired' Engel store boats and two droghers (paddlewheel-powered timber cargo punts). But there may have been once 11 boats abandoned locally in river mangroves. But there is a second Port Stephens' watery graveyard nearby, which is often largely overlooked. The site's at the entrance to the Myall River in the shallows of Pindimar (Duckhole) Bay. Here, there were once perhaps six abandoned ship hulks, including the biggest paddle steamer to ever ferry commuters between Sydney and Manly. But more about that shortly. Hulks were towed off Pindimar in the 1940s to serve as timber storage hubs, or floating wharves, awaiting ocean-going ships. This provided a quick turnaround to load timber cargoes and depart Port Stephens, as these larger craft would have had great difficulty entering the Myall River. A launch would then carry waterside workers from Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest out to load the timber from the offshore hulks directly onto the waiting vessels. Timber harvesting in Port Stephens continued for about 130 years, having begun in the 1820s. The peak of the massive timber business seems to have been in the 1920s and 1930s. River transport, however, then gradually declined after the introduction of more inland roads and timber lorries. This Myall River cargo trade though was briefly revived in World War II when petrol rationing forced timber-jinkers off the road from Bulahdelah and elsewhere. Meanwhile, when the days of the timber transfer from hulks to waiting vessels were over, the vessels were abandoned or scuttled. Five Pindimar hulks were finally identified by authors Brian A. Engel, Janis Winn (nee Motum) and John Wark in a local book printed in 2000. They were the steel hulk of the ship Sydney, plus a big, old double-ended Manly ferry called Brighton, a former lighthouse tender called the Governor Musgrave, a wooden steamer named Durobie or Deroby and East Star, a converted trawler. A local district identity, Horace Motum, operated a registered oyster lease on one of the hulks after the former timber trade vessel fell into disuse. When two NSW Heritage marine archaeologists, Tim Smith and David Nutley, officially surveyed the area in 1999, they identified at least three hulks, earlier beached for being hazardous, standing out in the shallows. They could positively identify only the double-ended steamer, Brighton, but also mentioned a sixth vessel, Bingara. Most of the hulks were severely stripped for scrap metal in the 1970s, leaving only rusting shells. The former iron steamer Brighton was once the largest and most luxurious Sydney ferry operating from Circular Quay. It's hard to imagine now, but she was the pride of the Manly ferries. She was 220ft long (67 metres), weighed 417 gross tons and could carry 1200 passengers at a time. Her plush interior was striking. This included velvet seats, polished woodwork and cages of singing canaries. Built in Scotland in 1883 as the Port Jackson, then renamed as Brighton, she's probably one of the best-known hulks in the Tea Gardens area, although now unrecognisable. She was abandoned in the Pindimar Bay scuttling area in 1916. Noted author and Sydney ferry expert, the late Graeme Andrews, said the Brighton made a hazardous 89-day ocean voyage out to Australia in 1883, including running aground three times. Andrews also said the vessel suffered storm damage off Columbo and ran out of fuel as she finally approached Sydney Heads, "obliging her crew to burn her protective wooden ocean cladding - or was that to avoid a timber import tax?" And now comes possibly the oddest story of all the timber storeships - and she's not at Pindimar. She's the former Aussie warship HMAS Psyche, sunk and now broken up on the muddy bottom of Salamander Bay across the waterway. Commissioned in 1899 as the light cruiser HMAS Psyche, she saw service in World War I operating to capture Germany's Pacific colonies. Later, she joined our RAN but was finally sold in 1922. Our once proud, now almost forgotten, cruiser was then dismantled over two years, converted into a mere floating hulk, a timber lighter, used to temporarily store long power poles up at Port Stephens. She'd been there only a few months when a sudden gale caused her to turn turtle and sink at her moorings in December 1924. What followed was later described as the region's biggest and most successful salvage operation for years in what was then 56 feet (16.9 metres) of water off present Corlette. Surprisingly, this one vessel's cargo alone comprised 2044 hardwood poles about 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 metres) long and about 18 inches in diameter, plus wooden girders, all bound for New Zealand The Newcastle Herald of June 2, 1925, reported that the salvaging of timber was finished, with 1900 poles recovered, with the rest lost forever, buried in deep silt beneath the submerged former warship. MANY years ago, on today's Kooragang Island, I saw an unusual event. It was the noisy demolition with explosives of old, abandoned wrecks in what was then called 'Rotten Row'. There were a series of loud bangs, swirling smoke and an acrid smell as mud and twisted chunks of metal flew everywhere in this soon-to-be-forgotten maritime graveyard. This tidal channel, an old creek really, was where worn-out old tugs, barges and small punts had been rusting away for decades. With their working days over, the vessels had been floated in there at high tide and abandoned long ago. This was probably in the late 1960s. There may have been up to a dozen obsolete craft in the inlet, probably on Moscheto Island, on an elbow of the Hunter River's south channel to the north-east of the then Newcastle Steelworks. The islands' reclamation scheme was then well under way to create more industrial land on what soon became today's Kooragang. With the derelict port vessels now flattened, the site was soon smothered in sand dredged up and pumped ashore from harbour dredging. These days, this port land is just part of our hidden history, with no traces left to remember where this once familiar ship dumping ground once was. It's a far cry from today's Myall River around Tea Gardens, where the remains of some old vessels of a different sort, surprisingly, still survive. Around Witts Island, for example, eight beached wrecks rotting away have been identified. They include three 'retired' Engel store boats and two droghers (paddlewheel-powered timber cargo punts). But there may have been once 11 boats abandoned locally in river mangroves. But there is a second Port Stephens' watery graveyard nearby, which is often largely overlooked. The site's at the entrance to the Myall River in the shallows of Pindimar (Duckhole) Bay. Here, there were once perhaps six abandoned ship hulks, including the biggest paddle steamer to ever ferry commuters between Sydney and Manly. But more about that shortly. Hulks were towed off Pindimar in the 1940s to serve as timber storage hubs, or floating wharves, awaiting ocean-going ships. This provided a quick turnaround to load timber cargoes and depart Port Stephens, as these larger craft would have had great difficulty entering the Myall River. A launch would then carry waterside workers from Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest out to load the timber from the offshore hulks directly onto the waiting vessels. Timber harvesting in Port Stephens continued for about 130 years, having begun in the 1820s. The peak of the massive timber business seems to have been in the 1920s and 1930s. River transport, however, then gradually declined after the introduction of more inland roads and timber lorries. This Myall River cargo trade though was briefly revived in World War II when petrol rationing forced timber-jinkers off the road from Bulahdelah and elsewhere. Meanwhile, when the days of the timber transfer from hulks to waiting vessels were over, the vessels were abandoned or scuttled. Five Pindimar hulks were finally identified by authors Brian A. Engel, Janis Winn (nee Motum) and John Wark in a local book printed in 2000. They were the steel hulk of the ship Sydney, plus a big, old double-ended Manly ferry called Brighton, a former lighthouse tender called the Governor Musgrave, a wooden steamer named Durobie or Deroby and East Star, a converted trawler. A local district identity, Horace Motum, operated a registered oyster lease on one of the hulks after the former timber trade vessel fell into disuse. When two NSW Heritage marine archaeologists, Tim Smith and David Nutley, officially surveyed the area in 1999, they identified at least three hulks, earlier beached for being hazardous, standing out in the shallows. They could positively identify only the double-ended steamer, Brighton, but also mentioned a sixth vessel, Bingara. Most of the hulks were severely stripped for scrap metal in the 1970s, leaving only rusting shells. The former iron steamer Brighton was once the largest and most luxurious Sydney ferry operating from Circular Quay. It's hard to imagine now, but she was the pride of the Manly ferries. She was 220ft long (67 metres), weighed 417 gross tons and could carry 1200 passengers at a time. Her plush interior was striking. This included velvet seats, polished woodwork and cages of singing canaries. Built in Scotland in 1883 as the Port Jackson, then renamed as Brighton, she's probably one of the best-known hulks in the Tea Gardens area, although now unrecognisable. She was abandoned in the Pindimar Bay scuttling area in 1916. Noted author and Sydney ferry expert, the late Graeme Andrews, said the Brighton made a hazardous 89-day ocean voyage out to Australia in 1883, including running aground three times. Andrews also said the vessel suffered storm damage off Columbo and ran out of fuel as she finally approached Sydney Heads, "obliging her crew to burn her protective wooden ocean cladding - or was that to avoid a timber import tax?" And now comes possibly the oddest story of all the timber storeships - and she's not at Pindimar. She's the former Aussie warship HMAS Psyche, sunk and now broken up on the muddy bottom of Salamander Bay across the waterway. Commissioned in 1899 as the light cruiser HMAS Psyche, she saw service in World War I operating to capture Germany's Pacific colonies. Later, she joined our RAN but was finally sold in 1922. Our once proud, now almost forgotten, cruiser was then dismantled over two years, converted into a mere floating hulk, a timber lighter, used to temporarily store long power poles up at Port Stephens. She'd been there only a few months when a sudden gale caused her to turn turtle and sink at her moorings in December 1924. What followed was later described as the region's biggest and most successful salvage operation for years in what was then 56 feet (16.9 metres) of water off present Corlette. Surprisingly, this one vessel's cargo alone comprised 2044 hardwood poles about 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 metres) long and about 18 inches in diameter, plus wooden girders, all bound for New Zealand The Newcastle Herald of June 2, 1925, reported that the salvaging of timber was finished, with 1900 poles recovered, with the rest lost forever, buried in deep silt beneath the submerged former warship. MANY years ago, on today's Kooragang Island, I saw an unusual event. It was the noisy demolition with explosives of old, abandoned wrecks in what was then called 'Rotten Row'. There were a series of loud bangs, swirling smoke and an acrid smell as mud and twisted chunks of metal flew everywhere in this soon-to-be-forgotten maritime graveyard. This tidal channel, an old creek really, was where worn-out old tugs, barges and small punts had been rusting away for decades. With their working days over, the vessels had been floated in there at high tide and abandoned long ago. This was probably in the late 1960s. There may have been up to a dozen obsolete craft in the inlet, probably on Moscheto Island, on an elbow of the Hunter River's south channel to the north-east of the then Newcastle Steelworks. The islands' reclamation scheme was then well under way to create more industrial land on what soon became today's Kooragang. With the derelict port vessels now flattened, the site was soon smothered in sand dredged up and pumped ashore from harbour dredging. These days, this port land is just part of our hidden history, with no traces left to remember where this once familiar ship dumping ground once was. It's a far cry from today's Myall River around Tea Gardens, where the remains of some old vessels of a different sort, surprisingly, still survive. Around Witts Island, for example, eight beached wrecks rotting away have been identified. They include three 'retired' Engel store boats and two droghers (paddlewheel-powered timber cargo punts). But there may have been once 11 boats abandoned locally in river mangroves. But there is a second Port Stephens' watery graveyard nearby, which is often largely overlooked. The site's at the entrance to the Myall River in the shallows of Pindimar (Duckhole) Bay. Here, there were once perhaps six abandoned ship hulks, including the biggest paddle steamer to ever ferry commuters between Sydney and Manly. But more about that shortly. Hulks were towed off Pindimar in the 1940s to serve as timber storage hubs, or floating wharves, awaiting ocean-going ships. This provided a quick turnaround to load timber cargoes and depart Port Stephens, as these larger craft would have had great difficulty entering the Myall River. A launch would then carry waterside workers from Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest out to load the timber from the offshore hulks directly onto the waiting vessels. Timber harvesting in Port Stephens continued for about 130 years, having begun in the 1820s. The peak of the massive timber business seems to have been in the 1920s and 1930s. River transport, however, then gradually declined after the introduction of more inland roads and timber lorries. This Myall River cargo trade though was briefly revived in World War II when petrol rationing forced timber-jinkers off the road from Bulahdelah and elsewhere. Meanwhile, when the days of the timber transfer from hulks to waiting vessels were over, the vessels were abandoned or scuttled. Five Pindimar hulks were finally identified by authors Brian A. Engel, Janis Winn (nee Motum) and John Wark in a local book printed in 2000. They were the steel hulk of the ship Sydney, plus a big, old double-ended Manly ferry called Brighton, a former lighthouse tender called the Governor Musgrave, a wooden steamer named Durobie or Deroby and East Star, a converted trawler. A local district identity, Horace Motum, operated a registered oyster lease on one of the hulks after the former timber trade vessel fell into disuse. When two NSW Heritage marine archaeologists, Tim Smith and David Nutley, officially surveyed the area in 1999, they identified at least three hulks, earlier beached for being hazardous, standing out in the shallows. They could positively identify only the double-ended steamer, Brighton, but also mentioned a sixth vessel, Bingara. Most of the hulks were severely stripped for scrap metal in the 1970s, leaving only rusting shells. The former iron steamer Brighton was once the largest and most luxurious Sydney ferry operating from Circular Quay. It's hard to imagine now, but she was the pride of the Manly ferries. She was 220ft long (67 metres), weighed 417 gross tons and could carry 1200 passengers at a time. Her plush interior was striking. This included velvet seats, polished woodwork and cages of singing canaries. Built in Scotland in 1883 as the Port Jackson, then renamed as Brighton, she's probably one of the best-known hulks in the Tea Gardens area, although now unrecognisable. She was abandoned in the Pindimar Bay scuttling area in 1916. Noted author and Sydney ferry expert, the late Graeme Andrews, said the Brighton made a hazardous 89-day ocean voyage out to Australia in 1883, including running aground three times. Andrews also said the vessel suffered storm damage off Columbo and ran out of fuel as she finally approached Sydney Heads, "obliging her crew to burn her protective wooden ocean cladding - or was that to avoid a timber import tax?" And now comes possibly the oddest story of all the timber storeships - and she's not at Pindimar. She's the former Aussie warship HMAS Psyche, sunk and now broken up on the muddy bottom of Salamander Bay across the waterway. Commissioned in 1899 as the light cruiser HMAS Psyche, she saw service in World War I operating to capture Germany's Pacific colonies. Later, she joined our RAN but was finally sold in 1922. Our once proud, now almost forgotten, cruiser was then dismantled over two years, converted into a mere floating hulk, a timber lighter, used to temporarily store long power poles up at Port Stephens. She'd been there only a few months when a sudden gale caused her to turn turtle and sink at her moorings in December 1924. What followed was later described as the region's biggest and most successful salvage operation for years in what was then 56 feet (16.9 metres) of water off present Corlette. Surprisingly, this one vessel's cargo alone comprised 2044 hardwood poles about 30 to 40 feet (9 to 12 metres) long and about 18 inches in diameter, plus wooden girders, all bound for New Zealand The Newcastle Herald of June 2, 1925, reported that the salvaging of timber was finished, with 1900 poles recovered, with the rest lost forever, buried in deep silt beneath the submerged former warship.
ABC News
19 hours ago
- ABC News
David Attenborough tells Prince William humanity has done 'unspeakable' harm to oceans
Iconic nature documentarian David Attenborough has told Prince William humans have done "unspeakably awful" damage to the planet's oceans. The Prince of Wales filmed a conversation with Attenborough, posting it on his social media channels for World Oceans Day. They spoke about Attenborough's latest film, Ocean with David Attenborough, and the 99-year-old's lengthy career. Attenborough spoke to Prince William about the very early days of ocean exploration, from when the now 99-year-old was a young filmmaker. The prince asked Attenborough about what state the oceans were in these days. "What we have done to the deep ocean floor is just unspeakably awful," he said. The interview was cut with vision from Attenborough's film showing how the ocean floor was impacted by bottom trawling — footage he said he was "appalled" by. In the film, Attenborough says "it's hard to imagine a more wasteful way to catch fish". He explained to Prince William that, because it occurred below the surface, many people weren't aware of the impacts of bottom trawling. "The awful thing is that it's hidden from you and from me, and most people," Attenborough said. "I mean, if [there was] anything remotely like it on land, everybody would be up in arms." It's a commercial fishing method. The idea is to catch fish that live on or near the sea floor with a large net towed by a boat. "Trawl nets are shaped like a cone or funnel with a wide opening to catch fish or crustaceans and a narrow, closed 'cod-end'," the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) website says. "Trawls can be used at various depths and nets differ by their mesh size." AFMA says trawling is the most common method of fishing but explains there are two types — midwater trawling and bottom trawling. Midwater trawling has "minimal impact on the environment", the AFMA says, because the nets travel through the water and don't come into contact with the sea floor. Here's a diagram to give you an idea of how that looks: Now compare that to the diagram of a bottom trawling operation: Bottom trawling sees the nets and heavy mechanisms designed to keep the net open dragged along the sea floor. "Significant damage can occur if sensitive habitat areas like corals, sponges and seagrass beds are trawled," AFMA says. "To ensure these sensitive habitat areas are protected from trawling, management arrangements such as area closures are extensively used." "If this film does anything, if it just shifts a bit of awareness, it would be very, very important," Attenborough said. "And I clearly hope that people who see it will recognise that something must be done before we destroy this great treasure." Fans took to the comments section to echo Attenborough's hopes for environmental conservation. "There is still hope and I hope the younger generations focus more on protecting what we have and rebuilding what we can," one YouTbuer wrote in the comments section. "Thank you so much for sharing this and bringing awareness of the tragedy that is happening to this beautiful underworld. May we all work together to rectify this issue before it becomes worse," another said. Here's where you can watch the full video on Prince William's YouTube channel: World Oceans Day is on June 8. It's an event on the United Nations' (UN) calendar that was inspired by the Oceans Institute of Canada. It was first declared back in 1992, but wasn't officially observed by the UN until 2009. "The purpose of the day is to inform the public of the impact of human actions on the ocean, develop a worldwide movement of citizens for the ocean, and mobilise and unite the world's population on a project for the sustainable management of the world's oceans," the UN says.
