Waterbear is the Netflix For Climate Documentaries
Environmental programmes are readily available on TV. But what if a platforms sole mission was environmental documentaries? Meet Waterbear
Our favourite TV channels have hosted some remarkable documentaries, helping push the boundaries of what we can discover. While WaterBear sounds like a nickname for a secret mission, their core values are far from it, offering a wide range of content focused on important environmental issues for free, with no adverts.
What is the WaterBear Network?
WaterBear launched in 2020, receiving support from high-profile supporters including Prince Harry and established brands such as Nikon, The Jane Goodall Institute and Greenpeace.
Since then, they have become a certified B corp streaming service, combining human stories and action together. Their advert free streaming platform has support from over 100 NGO partners, helping provide a diverse range of videos.
They explain that streaming video content, on a large scale, can be incredibly energy intensive. By streaming their videos through Vimeo, which uses Akamai for their content delivery, they hope to lessen their impact. WaterBear says that “Akamai has an impressive sustainability policy and is committed to reducing emissions and using renewable energy wherever possible. We consistently strive to make technological decisions that better the planet while maintaining the ultimate user experience.”
Original short films on the platform include Africa’s Hidden Sea Forest, exploring how a woman combatted her fears of water and has helped change legislations for animals around Africa. The short, 10-minute documentary was produced by the same team behind the Netflix hit My Octopus Teacher. Turning The Tide On Plastic, a film produced with non-profit Clear Rivers, explores our oceans, revealing how polluted they are in an impactful 3-minute documentary. According to Turning, The Tide On Plastic,
The equivalent of one truck of plastic waste is entering the ocean every minute.
While many of the documentaries are short, I see this as a positive as it can enable you to quickly play a short documentary while waiting for a program to start. Typically, we find programmes on TV are around 45–60 minutes, therefore, finding a program under that threshold can be harder. While the documentaries feature positive actions happening around the world, the shorter form content may not satisfy your craving and hoping to watch more of the story unfold.
WaterBear is available on iOS, Android and online, however, I found that subtitles are not supported online and the language of the documentary is not specified. This meant that I struggled to follow one documentary where there was a mix of languages when the team were interviewed. Finally, watched programmes when completed are not removed and sit in your keep watching category with no way to remove them, which means over time it may get clogged up. Though, as the service is totally free (no credit card needed), it is difficult to complain on the whole.
