Deep in the Tasman Sea, far below the reach of sunlight, scientists have discovered a hidden world: bamboo corals over a century old, golden corals reaching nearly two metres in height, black corals waving in the cold dark current, and hundreds of other species living in an ancient, fragile ecosystem nobody had ever properly surveyed.
The discovery — made at the **Lord Howe Rise**, a vast underwater plateau between Australia and New Zealand — has now formally designated the seamount a **Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem (VME)**. Under international regulations, that status should shield it from one of the ocean's most destructive practices: bottom trawling.
**What They Found**
The expedition, led by scientists working with Greenpeace, catalogued approximately **350 different forms of life** across the seamount: corals, sponges, sea lilies, and anemones living in communities that have built up over decades and centuries.
Among the species identified: bamboo corals, golden corals, precious corals, stony corals, hydro corals, and black corals — the kind of diversity that takes an extremely long time to develop, and almost no time to destroy.
Many individual corals were estimated to be **over 100 years old**. Some stood nearly **two metres tall** — towering, fragile structures that grew at a rate of millimetres per year, accumulating their size over lifetimes.
*"These ancient ecosystems are irreplaceable. A coral that took a century to grow can be destroyed in seconds by a trawl net dragged across the seafloor."* — Greenpeace researchers
**The Threat That Made This Discovery Urgent**
The Lord Howe Rise had been under threat. In October 2024, a New Zealand trawler — the Tasman Viking — extracted **37 kilograms of deep-sea coral** from the area, prompting outrage and a temporary halt in bottom trawling in the region.
The temporary pause held while scientists rushed to survey what might be at risk. What they found surpassed expectations: not just scattered corals, but dense, diverse ecosystems meeting the formal definition of a Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem under guidelines from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
VME status is significant. Under international fisheries rules, when a seamount is identified as a VME, fishing operations are required to avoid it or take protective measures. For the Lord Howe Rise seamount, the discovery now provides the legal foundation to keep trawlers away permanently.
**Why Deep-Sea Corals Matter**
Unlike the tropical coral reefs most people picture, deep-sea corals live in cold, dark water — sometimes thousands of metres below the surface. They don't rely on sunlight for energy; instead they filter particles from passing currents.
They grow extraordinarily slowly, but over time they create enormous three-dimensional structures that provide habitat for hundreds of species: fish, crustaceans, molluscs, and invertebrates that depend on the coral's skeleton for shelter, feeding grounds, and breeding sites. A coral reef at depth is an entire ecosystem compressed into a structure the size of a tree.
**A Discovery That Protects What It Finds**
There's something quietly extraordinary about this story: the act of scientific documentation is itself an act of conservation. By going down and carefully cataloguing what exists, researchers created a formal record powerful enough to trigger international law.
The seamount was there all along. The corals were growing. The ecosystems were thriving. All it took was someone to look — and then tell the world what they found.
Greenpeace continues to campaign for a permanent prohibition on bottom trawling across the Lord Howe Rise, and the discovery has strengthened their case significantly. The Tasman Sea, one of the least-studied ocean regions on Earth, is slowly revealing its secrets — and now, hopefully, protecting them. 🪸
*Sources: Greenpeace Aotearoa (March 7, 2026) · Deep Sea Conservation Coalition · High Seas Alliance · FAO VME guidelines*