Gilles Boeuf

02 October 2000

“Deep-sea trawling is of very little interest on the vast sandy-muddy soft beds because biomass is low and these environments require long periods of time to produce. On the rich deep-sea beds connected to hydrothermal vents or cold seeps, it would be catastrophic to trawl, the biodiversity being unique. As for the areas with cold corals, a few minutes of trawling destroys 1000 years of establishment of these ecosystems ; and to land what? Scarcely know or unknown products which humanity does not need!”