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In a special half hour show, CNN’s Call to Earth meets husband and wife duo, Ghislain and Emmanuelle Bardout who are some of the most technically skilled divers in the world. They are on a mission across the Mediterranean Sea to explore the ocean in search of an undiscovered oasis in the depths.

The ocean covers nearly three quarters of the planet, but it is home to some of least explored and least understood ecosystems on earth.Emmanuelle recalls, "I remember when I was a small girl, I thought underwater exploration was finished. Because I’ve been looking at Cousteau for years and it looked like everything was done. And then I grew up and it was like a new area for exploration appeared. Each dive we do in the mesophotic is a new sense of exploration."

Ghislain and Emmanuelle have taken their organisation ‘Under the Pole’ to the furthest reaches of the planet, diving beneath polar ice and among tropical reefs with the aim of discovering and documenting this mysterious environment, before it’s too late. Emmanuelle tells CNN, "It’s very important to study now on the Mediterranean French coast because of all these very important heat waves that we had underwater that have killed a lot of ecosystems in the surface zone. […] With this program, with Deep Life, is that we are not interested in one species in particular. We are interested in an ecosystem, what we call the forest."

CNN joins the couple on one of their dives in Fourni in search of a forest. The only way for the team to know what is happening below is from messages delivered by underwater parachutes. Upon returning to the surface unsuccessful, Ghislain explains that trawling could be the reason why, "The problem with bottom trawling is that it destroys everything down there. When you have species like black corals or gorgonias for example, they can take years, dozens of years, hundreds of years to reach the size they are which builds the habitats for all the other species. And that can be destroyed in just one trawl."

Ghislain and Emmanuelle met with local conservation organisation ‘Archipelagos’, who tell them they are close to the habitat they wish to find. During their dive, a parachute surfaces with the message, "Huge gorgonia forest. Many black corals. Sponges. Unbelievable and beautiful. A lot, a lot of fish. Forest between 100 and 78 meters, on a very large range."

Now, the team will collaborate with Lorenzo Bramanti, a renowned coral ecologist, to collect as much data as possible to aid in the protection of this new-found ecosystem. Bramanti explains, "For the first time, me and other colleagues are trying to really define this concept of a forest, putting in a scientific quantification that makes it possible to use it in conservation. […] If we eliminate too many species, we have a point at which the ecosystem collapses, and we don’t come back."

As the team continues their exploration of the Mediterranean, they are collecting data on every aspect of the marine animal forests, everything from the currents and acoustics, to the bacteria and sea life. Bramanti tells CNN, "We took these fishes in two different environments: inside a gorgonian forest and outside. Each fish is identified, measured and counted. And at the end, with the repetition of this, we have data to possibly show that inside the forest has a difference of fish community than outside."

For the divers, the unique ecological function of the marine animal forests is clear to see, "we immediately understand that from our eyes – inside the marine animal forest, biodiversity is high, and if you move just a few meters on the side where it’s only sand that can be trawled, it’s like desert. And it’s beautiful by the way. It’s not only an ecosystem or an underwater habitat for species that we are not used to see, it’s also a beautiful place."

The next steps for Ghislain and Emmanuelle involve seeking meaningful protection for the ecosystem. Emmanuelle explains, "What we don’t know is if the forest will be there in one week, in two weeks, in two months. So yeah, it’s incredible to find this in Fourni. Now there is a really urgent work to do with Greece government to protect this zone."