A DW camera crew flies a propeller plane across the Pacific, an area roughly the size of China and the USA combined but home to only half the population of Berlin. In Hawaii they embed with German Air Force Eurofighter pilots and naval divers training to protect German and NATO interests in the region, with officer Ingo Gerhartz explaining why the ocean matters strategically to Germany. Doctoral researcher Lucie Knor explains how rising greenhouse gas absorption is changing conditions in Hawaiian waters. On the Cook Islands, whale researcher Nan Hauser and her team track how climate change affects whale migration, framing their work as an effort to give whales, in her words, a voice people will respect. The film also looks at seabed minerals off the Cook Islands that locals hope could bring a new economic boom as demand for renewable energy technology grows. Military exercises, ocean science, and small-island economics share the frame across this first of two parts.