David Billett

01 October 2000

“A huge variety of fascinating life forms exist in the deep sea, not just corals and sponges. Many have unique properties of value to medicine, biotechnology and biomimetics. As for corals, all deep-sea species are extremely vulnerable to repeated physical impacts. The rules of life change in the deep sea. Deep-sea species have adapted to an environment where food is in very short supply; they have long generation times. Consequently, they are unable to withstand commercial-scale operations. For corals it may take a thousand years to recover from one hour of trawling.”