Treasure islands in the Pacific (Part 1)

For this two-part documentary, a camera team travels in a propeller plane to the “treasure islands” of the Pacific. They circumnavigate an area that – though roughly the size of China and the USA combined – has only half the population of Berlin.
The Pacific Ocean is larger than the entire land mass of the Earth combined. All the continents could fit into it and still be surrounded by water. Today, it is increasingly becoming a strategic arena for the world’s major powers – each seeking to safeguard its own economic and political interests.
In Hawaii, the team accompanies the German Air Force’s Eurofighter pilots, as well as naval divers from the German Armed Forces. They are practicing to defend German interests in the Pacific. From an economic point of view alone, it is absolutely clear “that the Pacific has a very important, fundamental significance for Germany,” explains Ingo Gerhartz, a longtime officer from the German Air Force, who was recently named Commander of the NATO Allied Joint Force Command in Brunssum, the Netherlands.
Lucie Knor, a German doctoral student, is researching how an increased uptake of greenhouse gases is affecting living conditions in the ocean around Hawaii. On the Cook Islands, the team finds out how climate change impacts the lives of whales. Whale researcher Nan Hauser and her team hope that their work will shed new light on the migration of whales – to protect them. They say their research is also about “giving whales a voice so that people love and respect them,” says Nan Hauser. 
Many islands are facing an uncertain future. But on the Cook Islands, people are hoping for a new gold rush, thanks to the presence of minerals in the seabed that could become increasingly valuable as demand for renewable energies grows.  Mark Brown, head of the Cook Islands government, says deep-sea mining has the potential to make his island nation more economically independent.