The story of one of Britain’s great underwater forests and one man's quest to protect it. In the 1950s, the Sussex coast was a treasure trove of adventure for freediver Eric Smith, who started diving when he was 11. It was a spectacular world brimming with life and one of the most bio-diverse places on the planet. Then in 1987, after devastating winter storms and a change in fisheries laws, Eric’s vibrant kelp forests were largely reduced to a barren desert. After years of alerting the authorities to the devastation, Eric could no longer stand witness to the destruction. Along with others, his lobbying of the Sussex Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority helped initiate a landmark plan to ban trawling in Sussex and allow the seabed to recover. In 2021, those efforts paid off, with a bylaw that banned trawling and protected some 300 square kilometres off the Sussex coast - the first such ban in the UK. Now, around the UK, there are 20 trawler exclusion bans under review. The