via Radio New Zealand International 

A Papua New Guinea social media practitioner says James Cameron’s historic diving mission has reinforced a message about the need to research and respect the undersea environment.

The acclaimed film director used a specially designed submarine to dive nearly 11 kilometres to the botttom of the Mariana Trench.

He spent just over three hours under water after reaching a depth of 10,898 metres exploring and filming the ocean floor at the earth’s deepest known point.

Emmanuel Narakobi of Masalai Communications conducted a rare interview with James Cameron before his dive while he prepared for the mission in East New Britain.

He says a lot of local people are excited about Cameron’s combined interest in the environment and sense of adventure, in both his work in film and scientific study.

Mr Narakobi says the film director imparted some important messages:

“We don’t understand enough about the undersea world and for us it’s an issue in terms of deep sea mining - we have two mining projects specifically that are occurring which are affecting our undersea life - and we don’t understand enough to be playing around with these things. And the other message was that in terms of exploration, the human pursuit of going to see the unknown, to find out about the world.”

Emmanuel Narakobi says his interview with James Cameron will soon be available online on the Masalai blog, masalai.wordpress.com.