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Thinking marine rewilding1: adapting a terrestrial notion to the marine realm. Definition, practices and theories of marine rewilding

Penser le réensauvagement marin: l’adaptation d’un concept terrestre à l’espace marin. Définition, pratiques et théories du réensauvagement marin
Pensar en la resilvestración marina: adaptación de un concepto terrestre al espacio marino. Definición, prácticas y teorías de la resilvestración marina
Ariane Cornerier

Résumés

Au cours des dix dernières années, les initiatives de réensauvagement marin se sont multipliées à travers le monde. Les quelques articles académiques sur ce sujet, majoritairement issus de la biologie et de l'économie, portent sur la faisabilité scientifique et économique des projets. Toutefois, il est nécessaire d’explorer les conditions de la mise en œuvre du réensauvagement marin, en étudiant notamment la typologie des acteurs, de leurs visions, les approches scientifiques mobilisées, ainsi que des outils de gestion et défis associés. Cet article présente une revue de littérature sur le réensauvagement marin et entame une discussion critique sur les défis auxquels les acteurs concernés doivent faire face. À travers l'analyse de la littérature académique et grise sur les concepts et pratiques de réensauvagement, les conclusions de cet article indiquent que le réensauvagement a été initialement conçu pour les zones terrestres dans les années 1990 avant de s'étendre aux environnements marins dans les années 2010. Il souligne également que les initiatives de réensauvagement marin continuent d'être influencées par des hypothèses terrestres et anthropocentrées. Ces projets ne constituent pas un mouvement en tant que tel mais une série d’initiatives isolées au sein desquelles les acteurs interagissent à différentes échelles pour partager leurs compétences et leurs résultats. Ces initiatives s’hybrident par ailleurs avec des outils plus classiques de la préservation de la nature en raison des limites scientifiques rencontrées, mais aussi pour gagner en acceptabilité politique et sociale. Par ces dynamiques, les initiatives de réensauvagement marin constituent des fronts écologiques par lesquels les usages et le sens attribués aux espaces marins sont transformés.

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Notes de l’auteur

Acknowledgements
Proof-reading: Bruno Villalba (Pr. political sciences, AgroParisTech/Paris-Saclay, Laboratoire PRINTEMPS, Université UVSQ Paris-Saclay), Grégory Quenet (Pr. environmental history, CHCSC, Université UVSQ Paris-Saclay), Nathalie Frascaria-Lacoste (Pr. evolutionary ecology, ecological engineering AgroParistech).
Language review: Ben Engel

Funding sources: this article was written as part of the author’s Ph.D. thesis which is funded by the Université de Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (Paris-Saclay, France) through a doctoral contract.
Apart from this, this research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Texte intégral

Introduction

  • 1 In reference to the environmental historian Dolly Jørgensen’s article “Rethinking rewilding”, Geofo (...)
  • 2 In the rest of the article, the abbreviation "MRIs" will be used to refer to "Marine Rewilding Init (...)

1While academic research on rewilding has focused mainly on terrestrial rewilding for many years, scant attention has been given to marine rewilding. However, during the last ten years, "Marine Rewilding Initiatives" (MRIs)2 have grown every year around the world, and also garnered extensive media coverage.

2Rewilding, as a notion, is hard to define because it covers a wide range of practices, from physical projects to more spiritual ones. It refers mainly to protecting natural areas by letting them recover, or intervening when they are considered to be too badly damaged. Dolly Jørgensen used the expression "plastic word" (Jørgensen, 2015, p.495) to emphasize the diversity of rewilding projects, and listed the main rewilding theories and practices as follows: passive rewilding, Pleistocene rewilding, trophic rewilding, and taxon replacement. While not clarified, this analytical framework has been drawn from terrestrial rewilding projects. What about marine rewilding, though?

3Based on an analysis of the academic and gray literature on marine and terrestrial rewilding, this article presents a state-of-the-art of the concept and practices of marine rewilding, which have not been previously studied in social sciences. In addition, this article provides a typology of marine rewilding initiatives worldwide through an analysis of the stakeholders implementing the initiatives, their vision, their tools (political, scientific or social) and the main challenges encountered. It opens up a critical discussion on MRIs. The article shows that marine rewilding does not constitute a movement per se, but rather a set of isolated experiments. However, the following typology can be put forward, on the basis of some common features: active rewilding through ecological restoration, passive rewilding through human withdrawal, and reflexive rewilding, which is akin to the practices established for terrestrial rewilding. Compared to terrestrial rewilding initiatives, the main difference of marine rewilding lies in the absence of an ecological baseline.

4The central hypothesis is that MRIs constitute a new ecological frontier in which diverse stakeholders, involved at a multiscale level, advocate new meanings and uses of marine areas and deploy strategies to gain legitimacy and reach political and social acceptance.

Ocean specificity and human relation to it

5Before an analytical framework of marine rewilding can be drawn, the marine environment must be contextualized in terms of its unique features. Covering more than 70% of the earth’s surface, the uniqueness of the ocean lies in its continuity and salinity (Bœuf, 2022), interconnectivity and heterogeneous wholeness (Laffoley et al., 2021). In the marine realm, there are two forms of connectivity: ocean connectivity, with strong interactions between the benthic and pelagic ecosystems, and migratory connectivity, with the voluntary migration of species (Dunn, Crespo, Halpin, 2019). All these elements shape the dynamic nature of the world’s ocean (Reygondeau, Dunn, 2019).

6These characteristics have traditionally been linked to the vast and limitless ocean in the human imagination. Its resources are thought of as inexhaustible, and mysterious because they are not fully known: "The ocean is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters…" wrote Henry David Thoreau (1865). The openness and inexhaustibility of the ocean have even been accentuated through human jurisdictions, with the formulation of The Freedom of the Seas by Hugo Grotius (1609) in the early 17th Century, whereby the ocean waters belong to everyone and to no-one at the same time.

7Given this context, knowledge of marine ecosystems is like a "chimera" (Lauck et al., 1998), and marine biodiversity is largely underestimated (Bœuf, 2022). This may explain why marine ecosystems have received less attention and protection from the political sphere. Here, the issue of accessibility can be raised: it is easier to protect and to learn to know what is accessible and visible: "it is quite understandable that the beauty and grandeur of the Grand Canyon would be valued and protected years before someplace such as the Monterey Canyon. As a geologic formation, this submarine feature of the California continental shelf and slope may be even more spectacular than its land-based counterparts, but its visual beauty and prolific resources are hidden in darkness, only to be seen in the lights of a submersible or remotely operated vehicle" (Barr, Lindholm, 2000). Furthermore, these conceptions of the ocean passed through a terrestrial filter.

8However, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (or Montego Bay Convention), adopted in 1982, established a common legal regime and defined different marine zones where rights and obligations apply for States. The maritime zones recognized under international law are as follows: internal waters, the territorial sea, the exclusive economic zone (EEZ), the continental shelf, the high seas and the Area (UN General Assembly, 1982). The high seas are considered international waters where no state sovereignty applies. In this regard, the Convention "fragments the seascape" and goes against the ecological contiguous reality of the ocean (Réveillas, 2022). Indeed, the ocean’s "heterogenous wholeness" (Laffoley et al., 2021) means that, at the same time, ocean interconnectivity is high, but some self-contained ecological units do exist. From a biogeographical perspective, the ocean has two parts: pelagic and benthic (Dunn, Crespo, Halpin, 2019), and from an ecosystemic perspective, scientists divide the ocean into seven units: estuaries (coastal zone where ocean meets rivers), salt marshes (where ocean meets land), mangrove forests (interface between land and sea, found in tropical areas), coral reefs (tropical seas), the open ocean, and the deep ocean (the ocean becomes darker, colder and with less available oxygen, which does make for some different ecological features) (Chand, Sambasiva Rao, 2021; Mitra, Zaman, 2016; Tyler, 2003; Kathiresan, Bingham, 2001).

9Thus, the oceanic domain is characterized by the interweaving of scales (legal, biogeographic, and geographic), whose boundaries have been drawn by humans to establish rules and define States’ prerogatives, or to provide an understanding of the ocean. This overview of the different scales of the ocean will allow us to situate marine rewilding initiatives in their proper ecological and legal context of the ocean’s realms and the challenges associated with them.

10Furthermore, given this contrast between ocean ecological reality and the legal zoning frameworks that are unsuited to it, ocean protection is even harder to apply: if we delimit a specific area in the ocean to be protected, that area will be traversed by marine currents and rather than remaining there permanently, fish stocks will migrate (Sloan, 2002). All these factors explain why ocean protection started being implemented later than on land, and why it may present daunting challenges that must be borne in mind when thinking about marine rewilding initiatives, which mainly occur in territorial waters, under coastal state jurisdiction.

The ocean in the Anthropocene

  • 3 Respectively: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, UN Environment Program, World Meteorologic (...)

11The above notwithstanding, the ocean is a place of multiple challenges, issues and threats. Scientific reports (IPCC, UNEP, WMO)3 relayed by the media indicate three main threats to ocean health: global warming (causing alterations in ocean chemistry and processes – mainly water warming, oxygen depletion and acidification), pollution (pesticides, nutrients used in agriculture, toxins from factories and industrial plants, air pollution) and overfishing (31.4% of fish stocks are estimated to be either fished to capacity or overfished (FAO, 2016)). Intrinsically embedded, these threats are causing unprecedented marine biodiversity loss, with the possibility that half the world’s marine species will be extinct by 2100 (Collins, 2019). In terms of human communities’ dependence on ocean resources, at least three billion people rely on fish as a primary source of dietary protein (L. Norton, n.d.). In addition, coastal zones already host over 70% of the world’s large cities and populations (Tu et al., 2022) which are expected to expand. Related to this unprecedented factual situation, the concept of "Anthropocene seas" has been pointed out (Artaud, Chlous, Mariat-Roy, 2021). Indeed, nowadays, "no area is unaffected by human influence and […] a large fraction (41%) is strongly affected by multiple drivers" (Halpern et al., 2008). This fact illustrates a direct causal link between human activities and the poor state of health of the ocean.

  • 4 International Union for Conservation of Nature

12Yet, marine areas are less protected than terrestrial ones. According to the IUCN4, 15% of terrestrial areas and 10% of marine areas should be part of protected areas (Szymanski, Penrose, Badalotti, 2016), but there is an ongoing debate on the degree of protection actually implemented. Marine Protected Areas could become "paper parks" when they "are simply decreed but insufficient resources are available for effective design, management, or enforcement" (Rife et al., 2013). For instance, only 8% of UK Marine Protected Areas are fully closed to all bottom and pelagic towed fishing gear (Allen, Hoskin, 2022).

13In rewilding as well, most of the attention rests on terrestrial areas. Terrestrial rewilding initiatives date back to the 1990s in America, while marine ones are far more recent: the first ones emerged around 2015, meaning a time lag of over 30 years for implementation. One hypothesis that can be drawn is that humans, as terrestrial animals, have firstly envisioned land-based protection and developed a land ethic (Leopold, 1949). An ethic of the sea has yet to be devised. Do marine rewilding initiatives herald the emergence of some form of sea ethic? At least, marine rewilders are defending the rewilding approach as a means to meet protection targets, especially in the context of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (Carver et al., 2021).

1. Theoretical and practical overview of marine rewilding

14How ought we to define rewilding? To what extent has this terrestrial concept been adapted to the marine realm? To date, social sciences have focused only on the first question and emphasized that the concept and practices of rewilding have mainly been marked by cultural and material parameters. Developed in America on terrestrial areas, the concept has now been adapted worldwide and includes marine areas. However, the second question remains unanswered. The following subsection establishes a state-of-the art of the notion of rewilding, applied to marine areas. Then, it presents an overview of the implementation of marine rewilding initiatives in order to elaborate a typology, akin to the one proposed on the terrestrial environment by Dolly Jørgensen (Jørgensen, 2015).

1.1 Defining rewilding as a research object in natural and social sciences

15Since it first began to appear, both among practitioners, activists and academics, rewilding has always been a plurivocal notion, referring to different meanings and practices. The word "wilding" associated with the prefix "-re" refers to the action of returning an area to its natural and uncultivated state while including a starting point to which to return (Dehaut, 2023; Jørgensen, 2015).

16The notion is known to have first appeared in American environmental activist circles in the 1990s. The terms "rewild" and "rewilding" are associated with Dave Foreman, a conservation biologist and co-founder of the Earth First! movement, who used these terms to establish a network of wild areas called the "Wildlands Network". This Network aimed at protecting wild areas on a large scale (regions and continent) by linking "core reserves" of high naturalness with corridors (Foreman, 1998) and by restoring natural processes focusing on the role of keystone species – especially large predators. At the same time, Michael Soulé and Reed Noss formulated the essence of the concept through their landmark article "Rewilding and Biodiversity" (Soulé, Noss, 1998), describing the scientific basis for rewilding with the "3Cs" model of cores, corridors, and carnivores. The main idea was to restore the American wilderness. However, a multitude of projects around the world have mobilized the concept (C. Fraser, 2010) outside the activist and academic spheres (Dehaut, 2023) and transformed the initial meanings and practices of rewilding, making it a "plastic" concept (Jørgensen, 2015). We will not, here, retrace the history of the concept, its diffusion, and adaptation, since this has already been discussed at length in the pre-existing literature (Hansen, 2010; Jørgensen, 2015; Locquet, Héritier, 2020; Barraud, 2020).

17To give a few examples, though, rewilding projects can either attempt to restore an entire trophic web ("trophic rewilding" (Svenning et al., 2016; Derham et al., 2018)), to restore natural physical processes ("abiotic rewilding" (Dehaut, 2023)), to bring back lost species that existed before human interference ("Pleistocene rewilding" (Donlan et al., 2006)), to withdraw human activities from natural areas ("passive rewilding" (Perino et al., 2019)) or indeed to rewild humans (a reflexivity movement focusing on the connection between humans and their environment (Monbiot, 2014)). Rewilding initiatives can either mobilize baselines (Pleistocene, Holocene) to restore an area to a specific state (Lorimer et al., 2015), or remain open-ended, without a baseline (novel ecosystems). Therefore, rewilding initiatives do not constitute a single movement but are usually independent projects linked to each other through networks. Indeed, rewilding initiatives are structured on a multiscale level: transnational NGOs (such as Rewilding Europe and the European Wilderness Society) connect with rewilding stakeholders (mainly associations) at national or local scales (Barraud, 2021). Thus, the notion of rewilding was first conceptualized and applied to terrestrial areas. It refers mainly to protecting natural areas by letting them recover, or intervening through ecosystem and process restoration (P. Jepson, Schepers, Helmer, 2018) when they are considered too altered.

  • 5 It is also the name of a community-led initiative in Scotland: ‘Seawilding | Native Oyster and Seag (...)

18Even so, some marine ecological restoration projects have, over the last decade, begun being qualified as rewilding. The main expressions used by the stakeholders themselves or by journalists documenting the initiatives are as follows: "reforesting the ocean" (McLaren, 2019), "seawilding"5, "rewilding the sea" (Clover, 2022a), or even "seaforestation" (Tracy, 2021). However, the ocean has many differences to terrestrial areas, such as its high connectivity, openness, jurisdiction and lack of scientific knowledge. To what extent has the concept of marine rewilding concept been studied in the academic sphere, and what does rewilding applied to the ocean entail?

19From the academic perspective, the few publications discussing marine rewilding are mainly from the economic and natural sciences (table 1). A search on the database Scopus has been performed to index all scientific publications relating to marine rewilding. The keywords used were as follows: "‘marine’ AND ‘rewilding’" (16 articles identified between 2012 and 2024), "‘sea’ AND ‘rewilding’" (20 articles between 2014 and 2023), "‘ocean’ AND ‘rewilding’" (16 articles between 2013 and 2023), "seawilding" (no articles identified), "‘reforesting’ AND ‘marine’" (3 articles between 2006 and 2020), "‘reforesting’ AND ‘sea’" (3 articles between 2006 and 2022), "‘reforesting’ AND ‘ocean’" (3 articles between 2006 and 2020) and "seaforestation" (no articles identified). A significant portion of those articles overlapped or were not directly linked to marine rewilding (they were oriented towards terrestrial rewilding on oceanic islands, revegetation projects on rivers, or global fish consumption). These articles were not retained for analysis. In the end, only seven articles were identified as directly focusing on marine rewilding as an object of study. These seven articles are listed below (table 1) to identify their main scope and outputs.

Table 1: Academic articles dealing with marine rewilding identified by Scopus

Keywords

Title

Publication date

Domain of study

Marine zone concerned

Main outputs

"marine" AND "rewilding" / "sea" AND "rewilding"

"Rewilding the sea with domesticated seagrass" (van Katwijk et al., 2021)

2021

Environmental science, seagrass ecology

Coast

The authors advocate the domestication and mariculture of seagrasses for successful marine rewilding.

"marine" AND "rewilding" / "sea" AND "rewilding"

"Rewilding the sea? A rapid, low cost model for valuing the ecosystem service benefits of kelp forest recovery based on existing valuations and benefit transfers" (C. Williams et al., 2022)

2022

Biology, marine ecology, economics

Coast

The authors measure economic costs and benefits of setting marine areas aside and rewilding them; through ecosystem services approach and nature-based solutions.

"marine" AND "rewilding"

"Rewilding of protected areas enhances resilience of marine ecosystems to extreme climatic events" (Sheehan et al., 2021)

2021

Marine sciences, biology

Coast

The authors compare ecosystem resilience to storms between fished and rewilded zones, based on a case study in Lyme Bay Marine Protected Area.

"marine" AND "rewilding" / "sea" AND "rewilding"

"Going back into the wild: the behavioural effects of raising sea urchins in captivity" (Brundu, Farina, Domenici, 2020)

2020

Marine sciences, conservation physiology

Coast

The authors study the behavioral effects of raising sea urchins (Paracentrotus lividus) in captivity before introducing them into the natural environment to enhance depleted marine wild populations.

"marine" AND "rewilding"

"Enhancing ecological integrity while preserving ecosystem services: constructing soft-sediment islands in a shallow lake" (van Leeuwen et al., 2021)

2021

Aquatic ecology, environmental biology

Coast

The authors present the scientific results of a project aiming to increase the ecological integrity of the freshwater lake Markermeer in the Netherlands through nature-based solutions and rewilding approaches.

"sea" AND "rewilding" / "ocean" AND "rewilding"

"Shorebirds-driven trophic cascade helps restore coastal wetland multifunctionality" (Li et al., 2023)

2023

Coastal ecology, marine biology

Coast

The authors demonstrate that shorebirds have a top-down effect on ecosystems and can help restore coastal wetland multifunctionality through rewilding. The experiments were done along the Yellow Sea.

"sea" AND "rewilding"

"Inventing the managed realignment of the coast: trying ‘to live with nature not defeat her’" (Oliver, 2023)

2023

Geography

Coast

The authors address nature-based management of realignment at the coast (in Essex at Northey Island), represented as an ecological modernization or rewilding; to analyze the ambiguity of the "wild experiments" performed.

20These publications are all recent (from between 2020 and 2023); most of them come from natural sciences (coastal ecology, marine biology, environmental science) or economics, and analyze marine rewilding case studies in coastal areas. These articles mainly focus on the financial and ecological feasibility of implementing coastal rewilding initiatives, and their impacts on social and natural ecosystems. In terms of ecological feasibility, the articles provide results from experiments to develop techniques and methods to reintroduce species of fauna (Brundu, Farina, Domenici, 2020) or reforest coastal ecosystems (van Katwijk et al., 2021). The other articles mainly deal with the effects of marine rewilding in terms of nature enhancement (Sheehan et al., 2021; van Leeuwen et al., 2021; Li et al., 2023) or social reception (Oliver, 2023). From an economic perspective, one article addresses the quantification of ecosystem services associated with marine rewilded areas through a nature-based solution (C. Williams et al., 2022). This last article is quite activist, in that it asserts that, to make rewilding initiatives happen, there is a need for economic arguments to be heard from political and economic actors and then "to support resource-management decisions" (Williams et al., 2022) and the article aims to contribute to that.

21Therefore, in the academic sphere, marine rewilding has been presented as a research object to help implement rewilding initiatives by improving scientific knowledge and creating conducive political conditions. However, academic research still needs to define what marine rewilding initiatives entail and to address their implementing conditions specifically in the marine realm.

1.2 Marine rewilding on the ground: towards a typology

22The main aim of this section is to present a worldwide overview and a typology of marine rewilding initiatives to help define them, to highlight the stakeholders and vision behind them. The methodology used to do so is based on a multisource strategy through documentary research. The materials collected and analyzed are the following: gray literature (initiatives’ websites, marine rewilding activists’ production, press articles), and academic literature on marine rewilding (listed above).

23To present a typology, the projects selected were those explicitly mentioning marine rewilding as part of their vision, and projects which, while not directly qualifying as marine rewilding themselves, were considered successful examples of marine rewilding by other marine rewilding stakeholders, who mentioned them directly in reference to their own marine rewilding project. The initiatives selected present an exhaustive view of what has existed previously and what exists on the ground at present. This picture may evolve rapidly in the near future, as there is currently buoyant interest in marine rewilding. For a detailed typology and overview, the information gathered and selected for each initiative were as follows: name of the project, starting year, location, stakeholders involved, funding sources, main goals and achievements, associated value of nature, type of rewilding and area. This typology provides a basis from which to open up a critical discussion on marine rewilding implementation and the differences from rewilding on land.

Table 2: Main marine rewilding initiatives around the world: organization

Initiative’s name/location

Organizations & stakeholders

Funding

Main goals and achievements

Vision and value of nature

Rewilding Type

British Columbia (1969-1972)

⇨ not qualifying as rewilding, but taken as a successful example by other stakeholders

Canadian and U.S. governments

Unknown

- To reintroduce sea otters to British Columbia (89 otters translocated from Alaska to Checleset Bay)a. Sea otters are a keystone species to enhance marine ecosystems

Preservationist

Active rewilding through reintroduction of apex predators

Area: coastal

Virginia Seagrass Restoration Projectb (Virginia Coast Reserve, USA), 2008

⇨ not qualifying as rewilding, but taken as a successful example by other stakeholders

Research center (Virginia Institute of Marine Science), Environmental NGO (The Nature Conservancy), and local society (volunteers from the Eastern Shore community)

Foundations (Volgenau, U.S. National Science)

- To restore marine habitats through seaforestation: sowing of eelgrass seeds (Zostera marina) into the waters (70 million seeds dispersed, 9,000-acre expanse)

Conservationist: to restore nature for itself, as well as to provide the potential for future implementation of a long-term carbon credit project.

Active rewilding through flora replantation

Area: coastal

The Billion Oyster Projectc, Hudson River Estuary (New York Harbor region), 2014

⇨ not qualifying as rewilding, but taken as a successful example by other stakeholders

Citizens (Murray Fisher and Pete Malinowski), Foundation (the Hudson River Foundation), public authorities (the NY State Thruway Authority, the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation), Environmental NGO (the Hudson River Park Trust).

Partly financed by: the US National Fish and Wildlife Foundation

- To restore oyster reefs (a billion oysters) to New York Harbor by 2035, in collaboration with New York City communities

- To raise students’ awareness about oyster restoration (environmental education)

Utilitarianist with ecosystem services rhetoric: oyster reefs offer protection from storm damage, reducing flooding, preventing erosion along the shorelines.

Active rewilding through reintroduction of ecosystem engineer species.

Area: estuarine

Lyme Bay Fisheries and Conservation Reserved (southern England), 2008

Environmental NGOs (Devon Wildlife Trust, Blue Marine Foundation), Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities (IFCAs)

Partner: University of Plymouth

Public: European Maritime and Fisheries Fund, Interreg France (Channel) England

- To enhance marine ecosystems and to support fishing communities

- To ban bottom-towed fishing (voluntary agreement between the Wildlife Trust, the South Western Fish Producer Organisation, and local fishermen)
- 2008: Statutory Instrument (SI) 2008/1584 under the Sea Fish Act, protecting 200km2 of Lyme Bay from trawling and dredging, creation of an MPAe
- 2011: creation of a Site of Community Importance, became a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) over 270km2, partly overlapping with the SI.

- static gear and fishing with scuba gear permitted across the SI and the SAC.

Conservationist (supporting fishing communities and meeting international conservation goals)

Passive rewilding through concerted Marine Protected Areas

Area: coastal

Solent Oyster Restoration Projectf (South Coast, England), 2017

Environmental NGO: Blue Marine Foundation (BLUE)

Partners: University of Portsmouth, Wild Oysters Project, trust (Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust), public agencies (The Environment Agency), charity (RSPB).

Unknown

- To set up a flat oyster hatchery

-To restore European flat oysters (Ostrea edulis)

- To increase the Solent’s water quality and marine biodiversity

Preservationist

Active rewilding through reintroduction of ecosystem engineer species.

Area: estuarine

Rewilding the North Seag (the Netherlands), 2015

Environmental NGO: ARK Rewilding Nederland

Partners: Environmental NGOs and organizations (WWF-ND, The North Sea Flat Oyster Restoration Consortium, the Native Oyster Restoration Alliance), aquaculture farms, research centers (the Royal Institute for Sea Research).

Ministries (Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, and Environment), Province of South Holland, Port of Rotterdam, National Postcode Lottery, and LIFE IP

- To reintroduce flat oyster reefs
- To include shellfish reintroduction on the newly built offshore wind turbines
- Communication: to spread the rewilding approach through selected marine species ambassadors (flapper skates, sharks)

Conservationist, ecosystem services rhetoric (water filtration, flooding mitigation)

Active rewilding through reintroduction of ecosystem engineer species and human rewilding through communication

Area: estuarine and coastal

LIFE Recreation ReMEDIES (Reduction and Mitigating Erosion and Disturbance Impacts affecting the Seabed, South of England), 2020

Natural England

Partners: Environmental NGOs (Marine Conservation Society, Ocean Conservation Trust), public authorities (Plymouth City Council/Tamar Estuaries Consultative Forum), Royal Yachting Association

EU-Life program (4 years, £2.5 million)

- To “save the seabed”h

- To restore a healthy seabed on 5 Special Areas of Conservation (SACs), focusing on seagrass and maerl restoration.

- Ocean as crucial for "our survival", providing 50% of our oxygen

Conservationist, ecosystem services rhetoric

Active rewilding through habitat and species restoration.

Area: estuarine and coastal

The Sussex Kelp Recovery Project (Sussex, England), 2021

Sussex Kelp Recovery Project Steering Group.

Partners: environmental NGOs (Marine Conservation Society, Blue Marine Foundation), Trust (Sussex Wildlife Trust) research center (Zoological Society of London), Universities (University of Brighton, University College London), documentary agency (Big Wave Productions), public authorities (Sussex IFCA, Adur & Worthing Council)

Trusts (Postcode Planet Trust,

the Pebble Trust), charity (Platform Earth), People’s Postcode Lottery, community-owned solar farms (Feery Farm and Meadow Blue), Barclays

- To restore 200km2 of lost kelp forest along the coast of Sussex.

- March 2021: Sussex nearshore trawling byelaw, trawling is banned over 300km2 of seabed by the Sussex Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority (IFCA)

- "to support nature-based enterprises associated with the recovery of the kelp forests"i

Conservationist,

ecosystem services and sustainable development rhetoric (kelp provides benefits for nature, people and planet)

Active rewilding through flora replantation.

Area: coastal

Seawilding, Loch Craignish, (Argyll, Scotland)j, 2020

Seawilding (community-led organization)
Partners: Environmental NGOs (Craignish Restoration of Marine and Coastal Habitats, Fauna & Flora International, European Rewilding Network, Project Seagrass), research center (the Scottish Association for Marine Science).

National Lottery Heritage Fund, public authorities (NatureScot, The Crown Estate)

- To restore lost biodiversity (European oyster Ostrea edulis and common eelgrass Zostera marina), to sequester carbon, and to create green jobs
- To advance the education of marine science

- To empower coastal communities

Conservationist, ecosystem services and sustainable development rhetoric

Active rewilding through flora replantation and reintroduction of ecosystem engineer species

Area: coastal

BioRestore, Marseille-Montpellier- Toulon (France), 2012

Ecocean (French company specializing in developing restoration techniques for marine ecosystems)

Partner: European Rewilding Network

Unknown

- To restock wild fish populations (85 species) raised in captivity back into the wild on the French Mediterranean coast

- To help the resilience of fish populations

- To help the marine rewilding project

Conservationist, for "the sustainable use of marine ecosystems"k

Active rewilding through fish reintroduction

Area: coastal

"Scaling Up kelp restoration project", Cascais (Portugal)l, 2020

Environmental NGOs (Mossy Earth, Green Gravel Action Group, SeaForester) researchers (Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre – Politécnico de Leiria), local community (Club Naval de Cascais)

Partners: Rewilding Portugal, Alladale

Environmental NGOs (Rewilding Portugal, WSL Pure) donations, diverse companies (Not Just Travel, Get Set Hire, Unifrog).

Total budget: £77,198

- To restore kelp forest through the green gravel technique (kelp grown in a lab and then laid in the ocean).

- To scale up kelp restoration in Portugal by building a kelp nursery "to produce and deploy kelp".

Conservationist,

ecosystem services rhetoric (kelp provides habitat for fish, clean water and sequesters carbon).

Active rewilding through flora replantation

Area: coastal

Gökova Bay Marine Protected Area (Turkey)m, 2012

Mediterranean Conservation Society (AKD), local community
Partners: Fauna & Flora International (FFI)

Arcadia Fund, the Endangered Landscape program, Conservation Media Group (Blue Initiative Grant)

- To support ecosystem recovery through the management of a network of MPAs and no-take zones and a marine guard program (along 500km of coastline) and fight against marine invasive species
- To engage the community in the management of the MPA.

Conservationist, sustainable development rhetoric

Passive rewilding through concerted Marine Protected Areas

Area: Coastal, bays

Azov-Black Sea

Danube Delta – Taganrog Bay (Ukraine)n, 2019

The Endangered Landscapes & Seascapes Programme (managed by the Cambridge Conservation Initiative), the Ukrainian NGO Centre for Regional Studies

Partners: Rewilding Ukraine, Rewilding Europe, WWF Ukraine and the Azov-Black Sea Ornithology Station

The Endangered Landscapes & Seascapes Programme

- To explore the restoration potential of the Azov-Black Sea eco-corridor (from the Danube Delta to Taganrog Bay), through dam removal and habitat restoration

- To encourage local economic growth with nature-based business models.

Conservationist, sustainable development rhetoric

Active rewilding: abiotic rewilding (dam removal) and habitat restoration

Areas: coastal, estuarine, delta, steppes

Rewilding the Galápagos and Hermandad Marine reserves (Ecuador)o, 2021

Environmental NGO (Galápagos Conservancy), public authorities (Galápagos National Park).

Partners: Foundations (Fundación Jocotoco, WildAid, Charles Darwin Foundation, the Bezos Earth Fund), Re:Wild

Bezos Earth Fund ($1.32M granted)

- To strengthen the Galápagos National Park’s capacity

- To expand the reserve with the new Hermandad Marine Reserve (from 60,000km2 to 198,000km2)

- To establish a no-take zone along an ocean corridor

Preservationist

Passive rewilding through establishment of marine reserves

Area: coastal

Stegostoma tigrinum Augmentation and Recovery project (StAR)p q, at Raja Ampat Islands, West Papua (Indonesia), 2020

Environmental NGO (ReShark organization), public authorities (West Papua Provincial Government), research center (Research and Innovation Agency of Indonesia).

Partners: over 90, among them: Sea Life Sydney Aquarium

Foundations (Segré, Rumah, Save the Blue, Henry), Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the Ingegerd Mundheim Estate

- To restore the zebra shark (Stegostoma tigrinum) population through reintroduction of captive-bred animals to the wild

Preservationist

Active rewilding through reintroduction of apex predators

Area: coastal

"The European Sea sturgeon restoration project"r, Rivers Wye, Towy and Severn (Wales, UK), 2020

The UK Sturgeon alliance: Environmental NGOs (Blue Marine Foundation, the Severn Rivers Trust and Nature at Work), research center (the Zoological Society of London), the Institute of Fisheries Management

Unknown.

- To restore the European sturgeon’s habitat (rivers and estuary- ecosystems) and population

- To reform current legislation for increased protection

Preservationist, social and heritage values associated with sturgeons – a charismatic species.

Active rewilding through habitat ecological restoration

Area: riverine and coastal ecosystems

Rewilding Oder Deltas: Baltic Sea, 2018

Rewilding Oder Delta, Rewilding Europe

Partners: local (TPRliG), GrazeLIFE, Wildlife Economies initiative

European Union (GrazeLIFE, Interreg), Deutsche Postcode Lotterie

- To restore freshwater and coastal ecosystems

- To support nature-based economies, sustainable development

- To reintroduce and restore marine species and habitats in the southern Baltic Sea (especially sand habitats on the island of Ruden)

Conservationist, ecosystem services and sustainable development rhetoric

Active rewilding through habitat ecological restoration

Area: coastal

a) COSEWIC, "COSEWIC assessment and status report on the Sea Otter Enhydra Iutris in Canada", Ottawa, Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, 2022.
b) The Nature Conservancy. "Collecting Eelgrass at VVCR", [online]. URL: https://www.nature.org/​en-us/​about-us/​where-we-work/​united-states/​virginia/​stories-in-virginia/​vcr-marine-eelgrass-collection/​.
c) Billion Oyster Project. "Billion Oyster Project", [online]. URL: https://www.billionoysterproject.org.
d) Blue Marine Foundation. "Lyme Bay Reserve | Blue Marine Foundation’s Flagship Project", [online]. URL: https://www.bluemarinefoundation.com/​projects/​lyme-bay/​⁠.
e) Marine Protected Area
f) Blue Marine Foundation. "Solent Wild Oysters Restoration Project", [online]. URL: https://www.bluemarinefoundation.com/​projects/​solent/​.
g) "North Sea | ARK Rewilding Netherlands", [online]. URL: https://arkrewilding.nl/​gebieden/​de-noordzee.
h) Remedies. "The Project". [Online]. URL: https://remedies-for-ocean.eu/​the-project/​.
i) Rewilding Britain, "Sussex Kelp Recovery Project Rewilding Project", [online]. URL: https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/​rewilding-projects/​sussex-kelp-restoration-project.
j) Seawilding. "Seawilding | Native Oyster and Seagrass Restoration, Scotland, United Kingdom", [online]. URL: https://www.seawilding.org.
k) Rewilding Europe. "BioRestore", [online]. URL: https://rewildingeurope.com/​rew-project/​biorestore-marine-rewilding/​.
l) "Scaling up Kelp Forest Restoration", [online]. URL: https://www.mossy.earth/​projects/​kelp-nursery.
m) Conservation Media Group. "Mediterranean Conservation Society", 21 October 2015. [Online]. URL https://www.conservationmediagroup.org/​grantee/​mediterranean-conservation-society.
n) "Exploring the Restoration Potential of the Azov-Black Sea Eco-Corridor | Endangered Landscapes & Seascapes Programme", 19 November 2020, [online]. URL: https://www.endangeredlandscapes.org/​exploring-the-restoration-potential-of-the-azov-black-sea-eco-corridor/​.
o) Bezos Earth Fund, "Rewilding the Galápagos Marine Reserve", [online]. URL: https://www.bezosearthfund.org/​grants/​rewilding-galapagos-marine-reserve.
p) ReShark, "StAR Project", [online]. URL: https://www.reshark.org/​star-project.
q) Jones, Burt, "Re-Wilding a Charismatic Shark Species in the Bird’s Head Seascape: Zebra Sharks to Be Hatched in Raja Ampat by Maurine Shimlock", Bird’s Head Seascape (blog), 8 September 2021, [online]. URL: https://birdsheadseascape.com/​conservation-science/​rewilding-a-charismatic-shark-species-in-the-birds-head-seascape-zebra-sharks-to-be-hatched-in-raja-ampat-by-maurine-shimlock/​.
r) Blue Marine Foundation, "The European and Atlantic Sea Sturgeon Project | Blue Marine", [online]. URL: https://www.bluemarinefoundation.com/​projects/​european-sturgeon/​.
s) Rewilding Europe. "Oder Delta", [online]. URL: https://rewildingeurope.com/​landscapes/​oder-delta/​.

24This overview shows that marine rewilding initiatives mainly occur in coastal and estuarine areas. These areas are part of internal waters (estuaries) and territorial waters (coasts and bays). And are under coastal state jurisdiction, which means that marine rewilding stakeholders may need to negotiate with national authorities in order to implement their projects.

  • 6 Charles Clover is a journalist (the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times). He made a documentary on (...)

25MRIs can be classified into three different categories. Firstly, passive rewilding aims to establish strictly protected marine zones. This tool relies on the creation of marine protected areas and no-take zones. These areas are to be left alone without no human intervention to allow natural processes to recover and to enhance ecological connectivity between protected areas. Marine ecological corridors would allow species migration, and exchanges of genes, nutrients and energy (Cowen, Sponaugle, 2009; Botsford et al., 2009), and also help marine life to adapt to changing environmental conditions. From the outset, passive rewilding involves negotiations among human communities living close to the sea or earning a living from it, rewilders, and local authorities. The idea is to find a common area of ecological interest where extractive fishing activities will be banned. The establishment of a 200km2 protection zone in Lyme Bay (southern England) in 2008 (table 2) is an example of such an MRI. A coalition of actors voluntarily agreed to ban trawling and dredging from the zone, and the fishing community is said to be at the very heart of the initiative. As Charles Clover6 denounced extractive fishing activities as being responsible for "de-wilding" the ocean, the ban on such activities is contributing to the reverse: "rewilding" (Clover, 2022, p.183).

  • 7 John Turnbull is a research associate at the University of Sydney. He is a marine ecologist and soc (...)

26The second approach to marine rewilding is active rewilding by restoring trophic interactions. Trophic interactions refer to the interactions between species at different scales (van der Putten et al., 2004) – especially predator-prey relationships (Schmitz, 2007) which contribute to functional ecosystems. Rewilders who apply the trophic rewilding theory to marine areas advocate that restoring the trophic balance would improve the health of the seas. For instance, John Turnbull7 defines rewilding as a way to restore ecosystem balance and equilibrium, where they have been altered, by reintroducing depleted species. According to him, "rewilding is relevant to our oceans as well as our terrestrial ecosystems", because some species are lost in the ocean owing to over-exploitation, just as they are on land, and then, the "removal of apex or high-level species removes predatory pressure on their prey" (Turnbull, 2016). An eloquent example is the interaction between sea otters, sea urchins, and kelp forests on the Pacific Coast of California: the overexploitation of sea otters has caused an over-proliferation of sea-urchins, causing significant damage to kelp forests through over-grazing (Weisbrod, 2021). In this case, trophic rewilding by reintroducing sea otters would be a way to restore natural marine processes (Turnbull, 2016). The main trophic rewilding method is the reintroduction or replantation of depleted wild fauna and flora into marine areas or on the seabed. The two kinds of species chosen to be reintroduced or replanted are either apex predators or ecosystem engineers, which are both keystone species – i.e. species whose presence determines "the integrity of the community and its unaltered persistence through time" (Paine, 1969). For instance, restoring the zebra shark population through reintroduction of captive-bred animals to the wild (table 2) is expected to contribute to functional ecosystem recovery. Added to that, ecosystem or bioengineers, which are "organisms that […] modify, maintain and create habitats" (Jones, Lawton, Shachak, 1994), can be reintroduced, such as flat oysters, kelp and eelgrass (table 2).

27The techniques used for trophic rewilding involve translocation of wild animals, breeding and reintroduction of wild animals, mariculture and plantation of wild flora (table 2).

  • 8 George Monbiot is a British writer and columnist for The Guardian. He published his book Feral in 2 (...)
  • 9 "Rewilding the North Sea | ARK Rewilding Nederland", [online]. URL: https://arkrewilding.nl/gebiede (...)

28A third approach is reflexive rewilding. According to the visions of the main projects studied (table 2) and literature from activists taking part in MRIs, there is a will to reconnect humans with marine environments. The idea is to rewild humans in their relationship to the seas. Three main tools are used. Firstly, some MRIs aim to deliver education on the marine environment to a large audience, such as the Billion Oyster Project. Other MRIs engage the local community directly at the heart of the project. For instance, Seawilding is a community-led organization. A third approach is communication about MRIs: the stakeholders or activists involved in MRIs aim to create a sense of wonder around marine wilderness, to change people’s minds and ways of living. Essays from activists develop this type of rewilding, describing the beauty and mystery of the marine world. This is what George Monbiot8 shares with the reader in his book "Feral" while describing his dive, looking for crabs: "I left it in a beach pool and swam out again, porpoising through the water, thrilled by the cold draught of the sea and the beams of light that searched the green deeps, glittering with motes of sand, drawn from the shore until I could no longer see the seabed, then into the emerald water beyond" (Monbiot, 2014, p.231). In the same mindset, Charles Clover in his recently published book “Rewilding the Sea” (Clover, 2022) wonders how wild the sea really is, and describes a particular marine scene: "When the dark-backed herring fry’s hiding places were discovered, they exploded in a flash of silver into the air and even up on to the turf to get away from their ravening predators. By picking up a few of these dying fugitives, I was able to identify that the fry were indeed juvenile herring" (Clover, 2022, p.6). These stories, imbued with lyricism, create a sense of wonder at the spaces and creatures of the sea, with humans relegated to the background as observers who can only gaze upon the beauty of nature. As a result, this way of relating to nature drives rewilding by arguing that humans have to withdraw from natural areas, with the recognition that nature can better protect itself than humans can. In this sense, rewilding the sea could occur "simply by stepping back and letting nature repair the damage" (Clover, 2022). These considerations can be found at the heart of rewilding initiatives implemented on the ground. An eloquent example lies in the "Rewilding the North" project by ARK Rewilding Nederland, in which ecological restoration and a philosophy of life are embedded in a single aspiration: "Seeing the beauty of growth and decay, hearing the song of birds, experiencing the grandeur of what is not controlled by human hands. Wild nature shows that we are part of something bigger".9

29However, these types of rewilding initiatives (passive rewilding through the designation of Marine Protected Areas, active rewilding through ecological restoration, and reflexive rewilding) are not as disjointed as one might think, since several arguments intertwine when it comes to implementing the projects.

30As is apparent, MRIs implemented on the ground are embodied by multiple networks of stakeholders, mainly centering on nature protection NGOs, natural science research centers and universities, and local communities; and are funded by governmental bodies, European institutions (through the LIFE and Interreg programs), foundations, and national lotteries. Through these partnerships, each initiative develops technical and scientific expertise in relation to specific ecological restoration issues (such as replanting seagrass meadows, reintroducing shellfish, etc.) and communication to promote a particular rewilding scheme. In that sense, MRIs constitute experiments in an attempt to rewild the seas. The rewilders are trying to constitute proof of concept through examples of scientific and socio-economic successes, since these initiatives are only recent, and need to address scientific, political, and social challenges. Added to that, MRIs can share similar stakeholders. For instance, the Blue Marine Foundation contributes to several initiatives in the UK. At the European level, the European Rewilding Network (ERN) is active and is often a partner of MRIs. It allows ERN members to access collective knowledge and expertise, and to share their experiences.

31To conclude this section, we argue that these multiple MRIs do not constitute a movement per se. There is no agreed standard definition of rewilding, no transnational structured network, but isolated initiatives in which networks of actors interweave at a multiscale level and share strategic (community engagement, negotiation) and scientific (replantation, reintroduction) knowledge and methods.

32MRIs do share some common traits. They mainly occur in coastal or estuarine areas and depend on the coastal state jurisdiction for their implementation. However, from the point of view of scaling up, the high seas might be the next area of intervention, which will require more expertise from coastal areas. MRIs aim to help marine ecosystems recover through the creation of marine protected areas, ecological restoration (species reintroduction) and restoring the bond between humans and nature, to achieve self-sustaining and functional ecosystems, which benefit biodiversity as well as human society.

33Furthermore, while the main methods used in the marine realm are the same as the ones used on terrestrial areas (passive rewilding, active rewilding through ecological restoration, and reflexive rewilding), some differences should be emphasized. The stakeholders involved in MRIs are more diverse than the ones found in terrestrial rewilding, and local communities are often mobilized. One hypothesis in relation to that observation lies in the openness of marine areas: since the rewilders cannot own a piece of the ocean because the seabed is public, they have to negotiate with other stakeholders who are active at sea. Another difference with terrestrial initiatives is that MRIs do not refer to any ecological baseline to restore the ocean to a specific ecological state. Here, the hypothesis is that scientific data are lacking in relation to the ocean, so the ecological baseline is not known.

34In implementing these initiatives, rewilders may cope with challenges that constitute limiting parameters and influence the projects’ design. The next section of this article is dedicated to the analysis of some of these parameters.

2. Main challenges to the implementation of MRIs; perspectives for a critical reflection

35By using the main characteristics of MRIs which were noted in Section 1, this section offers a critical perspective on the challenges these initiatives face with respect to open marine areas in crisis. As mentioned earlier, the openness of the ocean is twofold: on the ecological front, the ocean is characterized by interconnectivity and heterogeneous wholeness (Laffoley et al., 2021); on the legal front, the ocean cannot be privatized. The crisis aspect of the ocean lies in the multiple threats occurring (global warming, pollution and overfishing). How can we rewild the ocean in view of this specific marine context? The salient challenges are found in the experimental scientific conditions for implementing the initiatives and in the necessity to negotiate with political and societal stakeholders in an open ocean.

2.1 Technical and scientific tools as limits: rewilding a space in crisis

36The first challenge facing marine rewilders involves dealing with marine areas characterized by a lack of scientific knowledge about them (Lauck et al., 1998) and the multifaceted crisis. In particular, the approaches that rewilders use need to be examined.

37On a conceptual level, rewilding initiatives have developed a functionalist approach (Jepson, 2016). This approach considers ecosystems as vast entities to protect, which must be allowed to evolve freely. However, when implemented on the ground, the main rewilding techniques rely on ecological restoration in targeting specific species to restore, without referring to any ecological baseline. Ecological restoration refers to helping the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded (Gann et al., 2019). The primary debate among rewilders is between the options of leaving nature alone to recover without our interference, or intervening in natural processes. Proponents of the former argue that nature can repair the damage itself. Indeed, the ecological connectivity of marine ecosystems offers the possibility of leaving nature isolated and not necessarily physically reintroducing species to a region from which they have disappeared. In this sense, "rewilding can happen in the ocean if we provide adequate protection and just let nature do her thing" (Turnbull, 2016, p.31).

38On the contrary, interventionists argue that, if left alone, nature will take too long to make the ecosystems resilient again. One potential approach to improve ecosystems involves keystone species restoration. In this context, marine rewilders have developed two approaches to trophic rewilding (table 2). While the apex-predators approach aims to reintroduce predators in order to restore the trophic balance, several issues arise. The first concerns scientific techniques – in particular, breeding captive animals and reintroducing them into depleted marine ecosystems. Indeed, the success rate for the reintroduction of captive bred animals into the wild varies between 11% (Beck et al., 1994) and 38% (Griffith et al., 1989). The main factors explaining this low success rate are: "reduced exposure to natural antigens and the loss of immunogenetic variation" during the captive breeding process (Faria, Van Oosterhout, Cable, 2010), reduced genetic diversity and fitness (Fraser, 2008) and different behavioral patterns of the captive bred fish (Gro Vea Salvanes, Braithwaite, 2006). Added to that, while the animals remain in captivity before being released into the wild, the ecosystem in which they once lived could undergo major changes that could impact the reintroduction process (Svensson, 2011). There is a need to improve captive breeding and reintroduction techniques. Translocation (wild animals being caught and released into another place) achieves a higher success rate: 44% for threatened, endangered or sensitive species and 48% for carnivores (Griffith et al., 1989), depending on multiple variables such as habitat quality, population size (Griffith et al., 1989) and management plans (Sarrazin, Barbault, 1996).

39The second issue concerns the success of managing potential reintroductions in a vast ocean. Indeed, for species that travel long distances to complete their biological cycle, it is a challenge to devise effective conservation strategies because these species cross diverse management jurisdictions (Dulvy et al., 2017). To give an example, each one of the estimated 1,250 species of shark is encountered in the waters of eight countries (Dulvy et al., 2017).

40The second approach developed for trophic rewilding focuses on ecosystem engineer or bioengineer species. These species are "organisms that directly or indirectly modulate the availability of resources to other species, by causing physical state changes in biotic or abiotic materials. In so doing they modify, maintain and create habitats" (Jones, Lawton, Shachak, 1994). Recently, there has been discussion, in the field of marine research, of the scientific challenges that arise while implementing these reintroductions. In particular, researchers have struggled to breed marine species instead of transplanting already established species (such transplantation would further deplete the ecosystems in which the specimens originated). In order for breeding programs to succeed, there is a need to develop sampling, culturing, replantation or reintroduction, and even genetic selection techniques (van Katwijk et al., 2021). In the reintroduction process, such rewilding methods may effectively involve "gardening" the ocean through multiple sampling, culturing, and replantation processes.

41For instance, there is momentum in Europe regarding the ecological restoration of the European flat oyster Ostrea Edulis (Linnaeus, 1758), but there remain a great many barriers to overcome. The main restoration technique for Ostrea edulis is to culture older larvae (spat) and release them into the wild (Colsoul et al., 2021). During that process, it is imperative that genetic diversity be preserved (Pogoda et al., 2019), but difficult to achieve. Added to that, it is necessary to avoid transfers of pathogens and diseases such as Bonamiosis and Marteliosis (Colsoul et al., 2021). This threat requires biosecurity measures such as the quarantine of oysters and an analysis to detect diseases (Sas et al., 2020), which remains scientifically challenging.

42Added to that, it is difficult to take account of these requirements (absence of pathogens and preservation of high genetic diversity) while breeding flat oysters for ecological restoration purposes, and given that, the current seed oyster supply is too limited and represents a limiting factor (Pogoda et al., 2019). Furthermore, ecological restoration needs to look at the past as well as the future, which cannot currently occur. Indeed, there is an absence of reference sites to provide a baseline to "inform adaptive management of restoration" of European flat oysters (zu Ermgassen et al., 2020). There is also a need to anticipate future changing environments, linked with climate change, disease and anthropogenic stressors (zu Ermgassen et al., 2020). In Europe, the Native Oyster Restoration Alliance10 explores the restoration of shellfish reefs, and flat oysters in particular, as a means to rewild the seas. The research centers, aquaculture farms, and nature protection NGOs involved in the Alliance share knowledge and experimental experiences in order to develop methods to restore these bioengineer species and develops a set of guidelines to help stakeholders with Ostrea Edulis restoration projects (Pogoda et al., 2017; 2019).

43Another challenge is to delineate the areas in which to reintroduce the species and develop rewilding initiatives. While political and social constraints conditioning the selection of the areas will be discussed below in section 2.2.2, one very significant complicating factor is sea-level rise owing to climate change (Brown et al., 2018). This general trend will give potential new sites to be rewilded: "on sea level rise in the twenty-first century, subsiding low-lying land may become available for seagrass rewilding or mariculture sites as well" (van Katwijk et al., 2021).

44Thus, during the implementation process, MRIs mobilize classic ecological restoration tools such as translocation or reintroduction of wild fauna and flora species. These tools are not yet very well defined, due to limits of human knowledge and scientific and technical limitations when dealing with marine ecosystems. In this sense, MRIs constitute a set of experiments in which multiple tools coexist. Furthermore, the unpredictability of marine ecosystems makes it tricky to replicate the models developed.

2.2 Bringing rewilding projects into the political and social arenas

45The second main challenge that MRIs face concerns their social and political reception, which directly influences projects’ designs. Compared to terrestrial areas, which can be owned, marine areas are open and with a greater density of stakeholders having activities at sea (fisheries, aquaculture farms, windmill farms and ecotourism, to quote but a few). Rewilders need to find space to implement their initiatives. This subsection first analyzes rewilders’ argumentative registers through their discourses and visions of nature and their attempts to bring MRIs into the political and social arenas. Then, we will explore the hypothesis that rewilding projects constitute new ecological frontiers on the ocean.

2.2.1 The argumentative registers of rewilders: between ecocentrism and anthropocentrism

46MRIs weave together various visions of nature protection (table 2). These visions fluctuate according to the desire to define rewilding on philosophical, scientific and practical axes. Furthermore, the associated discourses can adapt to the political and social contexts where MRIs are implemented to gain acceptance.

47The analytical framework developed by Baird Callicott in conservation ethics (Callicott, 1991; Callicott, 2002) can be used to qualify these visions of ethical approaches, especially, ecocentrism, which refers to the perception of ecosystems as communities.

48The common discourse at the core of rewilding initiatives argues for the protection of marine ecosystems as a whole, representing an ecocentrist approach. This approach goes hand in hand with the will to restore the functionality of the ecosystem through a so-called functionalist approach (Jepson, 2016). However, as demonstrated in section 2.1, active rewilding through reintroduction focuses on one specific species to restore in order to boost marine ecosystems at the outset of the initiative. Usually, the species selected for reintroduction are keystone species and emblematic species. Focusing on specific emblematic species offers a means of gaining support from political institutions. Indeed, environmental policies mainly embodied by the Birds (1979) and Habitats Directives and the Natura 2000 network (1992) use a focus on specific species and habitats to restore, through a compositionalist approach (Jepson, 2016; Pettorelli et al., 2018). Added to that, by focusing on one species to restore, rewilders can benefit from financial tools from the European Commission such as LIFE program or Interreg, which largely adopt a species-centered approach. Furthermore, using emblematic, charismatic or flagship species (e.g. species whose "charisma can promote interest in local conservation issues" (Barua, 2011)) such as sharks, flat oysters and sea otters, may help achieve political and social acceptance. In this sense, rewilding initiatives have difficulty breaking free from the "heritage" framework, where the emphasis is also placed on specific remarkable habitats and species.

49Secondly, MRIs usually use ecosystem services and sustainable development rhetoric to argue for rewilding (table 2), through an anthropocentric register and conservationist approach. For instance, one argument of the association ARK Rewilding Nederland in restoring flat oyster reefs in the North Sea is that they filter seawater and provide natural coastal protection11. Another eloquent example is the Sussex recovery project, where the rhetoric used by the rewilders refers to the ecosystem and sustainable development. Rewilders emphasize the benefits that kelp provides to humans, such as carbon sequestration, water filtration and storm protection12. These benefits have even been studied and quantified by scientific research. An article from economists and biologists (Chris Williams et al., 2022) assesses the benefits of restoring kelp beds in Sussex (Eastern Channel, UK) by removing fishing activity. The authors present kelp forests and seagrasses as important carbon sinks and develop a methodology for "Ecosystem Service valuation" (Williams et al., 2022). In this scheme, restoring kelp forests is considered a nature-based solution, "simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits" (Williams et al., 2022), such as kelp harvesting, maintenance of water quality, coastal protection, carbon sequestration, tourism, and recreation.

50This anthropocentric approach, couched in ecosystem services rhetoric, thus brings economic arguments to the attention of the political and economic actors, who can then support MRIs through "resource management decisions" (Williams et al., 2022). This instrumental dimension is a tool for negotiation with policymakers and funders, in order to gain the authorizations and funding needed to implement the initiatives.

51Similarly, rewilding organizations lobby at institutional levels to gain political support. In doing so, they emphasize the role that rewilding could play in helping governments meet their environmental targets. For instance, the NGOs Rewilding Britain and Marine Conservation Society published a report called "Blue carbon: Ocean-based solutions to fight the climate crisis" (Riglen, 2021). They outline how marine rewilding could help the UK government reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 by restoring seagrass, salt marsh, oyster reefs, and kelp forests.

52Another lobbying method uses the spatial approach to nature protection that rewilders advocate through concerted MPAs. Since the millennium ecosystem assessment (2001-2005), the spatial approach has increasingly been advocated at governmental and international levels (Chakour, Dahou, 2009). The new "30×30" approach, meaning the drive to protect 30 percent of the planet by 2030, proposed by the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), follows the same scheme.

53Additionally, marine rewilders pay attention to the social reception of the MRIs. Indeed, MRIs could put an end to already existing human activities (such as bottom-trawling), involve the production of a new seascape (such as kelp forest restoration) and bring humans and wildlife into conflict. For instance, the reintroduction of apex predators such as elasmobranchii can lead to sharks biting humans, management conflicts involving threatened species and depredation in fisheries (Carlson et al., 2019). To avoid negative public reception, rewilders use community engagement. While the concept of the local community has been broadly debated (Ojha et al., 2016; Agrawal, Gibson, 1999), we define it here as a group of multiple actors which can have different interests and can interact with each other through multiple cross-scale networks, forming different communities of interest (Ojha et al., 2016; Agrawal, Gibson, 1999). In this context, community engagement can be defined as participation of local communities of interest in the MRIs, to differing degrees, from low-level participation to empowerment (Martin, Fischer, McMorran, 2023). From the main goals and achievements of the MRIs studied in table 2, we can see that MRIs usually involve local communities of interest through three main means: environmental education (such as for the Billion Oyster Project), partnerships with local enterprises (for instance, the Lyme Bay Fisheries and Conservation Reserve partnered with fish-producing organizations and local fishermen) and the involvement of volunteers in monitoring rewilded sites (such as in the Virginia Seagrass project) or in the management of Marine Protected Areas (Gökova Bay). Furthermore, MRIs can emanate directly from local communities, such as the Seawilding project.

54Community engagement is plainly a prominent tool for setting up initiatives, to reduce potential conflicts and increase social acceptance. Indeed, marine rewilders have to act on an open area in which other players are active (such as fishing, windfarms, aquaculture farms and ecotourism, to quote a few). Thus, community engagement is a way to negotiate, from the outset, with local communities and authorities in the implementation of newly managed areas. However, empirical research remains to be done on the real degree of involvement and empowerment of local communities in MRIs. Indeed, there may be a gap between the participatory rhetoric of rewilders and the practice (Benjaminsen, Svarstad, 2010).

55While implementing MRIs, rewilders mobilize various approaches for nature protection – ecocentrism, anthropocentrism – to increase societal and political acceptance. These hybridization processes with traditional conservation through compositionalist, ecosystem services and community engagement rhetorics allow rewilders to access the normative framework of nature conservation to obtain political, financial and social support. In doing so, rewilders delineate marine areas and change their uses and meanings.

2.2.2 Transforming the use and meaning of marine spaces: towards ecological frontiers

56Recall that marine areas are open areas where multiple actors have an activity, both in coastal areas and on the high seas. Hence, the delimitation of areas to rewild is transforming their values and the meaning attached to them. Indeed, the use of the space changes, and the actors may redefine their roles and activity in these areas. Here, the hypothesis is that MRIs constitute new marine ecological frontiers through territorialization.

57Originally applied to terrestrial areas, the concept of ecological frontiers refers to "real or mental spaces marked by strong ecological and aesthetic values which are coveted by various stakeholders" (Guyot, 2009), as well as to "a process of territorial (re)conquest, and cultural domination or reappropriation, carried out in the name of ecology" (Guyot, 2015). In this appropriation process, "eco-conquerors" are the stakeholders who carry out a physical or ideological conquest. Furthermore, Sylvain Guyot points out three geographical criteria for ecological frontiers: the existence of stakeholders such as environmental NGOs, scientific structures or ministries which conceive the frontier itself; a place from where the conquest is envisioned; and the shift in the legal status or uses of the geographical area concerned (Guyot, 2020). Added to that, ecological frontiers imply a process of territorialization both in terms of space and time and the existence of an environmentalist regime, where the stakeholders espouse ecological values (Guyot, 2017). Ecological frontiers are also a theoretical tool with which to analyze the socio-spatial effects of nature conservation projects (Barraud, 2021).

58While the concept of ecological frontiers was originally developed to analyze terrestrial conservation projects, recent studies have adapted the concept to marine areas (Surmont, 2021). Emmanuelle Surmont defined and studied the opening up of ecological frontiers in the process of designation of Marine Protected Areas in the Indian Ocean. According to her, as opposed to extractivist activities, marine ecological frontiers refer to a process of power struggle to delineate and dedicate specific marine areas to biodiversity conservation (Surmont, 2021, p.37). The increasing number of Marine Protected Areas is considered as the creation of a global marine ecological frontier.

59As discussed in section 1.3, rewilding initiatives impact the materiality of the space chosen and the ideal way of relating to nature. They achieve both physical and spiritual transformations in the chosen areas. The rewilding initiatives mentioned in table 2 rely on the same process in creating a discourse on rewilding and nature protection; setting up a system of values attributed to natural areas (ecocentric as well as anthropocentric); choosing a place on which to act, which may be an already existing MPA, a newly created MPA or a place outside protected areas; and in implementing the ecological restoration work, by constituting a network of actors (research centers, funders, local communities) sharing their expertise and visions about nature. Community engagement to increase social acceptance is a means to perpetuate the marine ecological frontiers. In that sense, MRIs implemented by NGOs or local communities seem to correspond to the definition of ecological frontiers coined by Sylvain Guyot and applied to marine areas by Emmanuelle Surmont. Therefore, the areas chosen by rewilders will define new geographical frontiers in which ecology and sustainable development play a central role, creating new spatial patterns (conservation enclaves, experimentation areas).

60Furthermore, through the dynamics of ecological frontiers, marine rewilding initiatives contribute to the "territorialization" (Drisch, 2015) of ocean, in the sense that these areas are subjected to a newly constituted authority – be it derived from governmental institutions or NGOs – and "a principle of organization and exploitation" is obeyed (Royer, 2021). This can be seen in the implementation of Marine Protected Areas, where marine rewilded areas are similarly creating "territorial formations" in which the "power of space is transformed by ecological concern" (Chmara-Huff 2014). Another dimension of marine rewilding that can further the territorialization dynamic is the aspect of ocean gardening, through active restoration such as replantation of bioengineer species.

61However, further research needs to be done to address the different environmental ideologies employed by rewilders in marine ecological frontiers.

62Embedded with the ecological frontiers and territorialization dynamics, one may ask whether marine rewilding initiatives constitute new commons. In the course of the projects, a network of actors is built, from the local communities living on the coast to institutions giving their consent, and new rules are set in relation to the uses of the area delineated. While that area may not be owned in common in the strictest sense (since the seabed and the seas are public), the newly constituted network is collectively responsible for the management of the ecosystems, the use of the resources and their sustainability. In that sense, rewilding initiatives seem to constitute commons in the marine world, in Ostrom’s sense of the word (Ostrom, 1990).

63In this section, we have seen that marine rewilders have to deal with certain inherent limits when dealing with an ocean environment that is open and interconnected. From a scientific perspective, the main barriers to MRIs’ deployment are lack of scientific knowledge about the ocean, and the need for further scientific research about reintroduction techniques. In this regard, there is an intrinsic experimental dimension to MRIs. Added to that, while changing the meaning and uses of portions of marine areas, marine rewilders develop strategies to achieve political and social acceptance. At the political level, marine rewilders focus on emblematic species to fit in with the political compositionalist paradigm of nature conservation, and also adopt ecosystem services discourse to support economic arguments. At the social level, the community engagement lever is used to increase social acceptance. Given these MRIs’ dynamics and processes, we hypothesize that MRIs constitute new marine ecological frontiers.

Conclusion

64While marine rewilding initiatives flourish worldwide, only a few studies have considered marine rewilding as a scientific object; those studies emanate from natural and economic sciences. However, no research in social sciences has questioned the conditions governing the implementation of MRIs. This article provides an overview of MRIs currently implemented worldwide. It is apparent that MRIs mainly occur in coastal areas and aim to help marine ecosystems recover through the creation of marine protected areas, ecological restoration (species reintroduction) and restoring the connection between humans and nature to achieve self-sustaining and functional ecosystems. Three types of MRIs exist and intertwine: passive rewilding through Marine Protected Areas, active rewilding through ecological restoration, and reflexive rewilding. These MRIs are embodied by multiple networks of stakeholders, mainly centered on nature protection NGOs, natural science research centers and universities, local communities. They tend to be funded by governmental bodies, European institutions (through the LIFE and Interreg programs), foundations, and national lotteries. MRIs have a strong experimental component and do not constitute a movement per se, since there are no commonly defined theories and practices, but the stakeholders constitute networks interpenetrating at a multiscale level, sharing strategic and scientific knowledge and methods.

65Indeed, one of the main challenges facing marine rewilders is the limits of scientific techniques to rewild the sea through the reintroduction of wild fauna and flora – especially breeding techniques. Furthermore, given the potential social conflicts and a political compositionalist framework, marine rewilders develop strategies to increase the feasibility of their projects. Indeed, using a logic that is both top-down and bottom-up, the stakeholders implementing rewilding seek support from dedicated institutions for authorizations, from financers to receive funds, and from local communities for acceptance. Thus, in their discourse, we see the development of rhetoric relating to ecosystem services and sustainable development. This specific feature constitutes a broad difference from terrestrial projects. In an open area, it is necessary to negotiate with the cluster of actors involved and to deal with the unity of the marine environment, characterized by its high ecological connectivity. Another major difference with terrestrial projects is the absence of an ecological baseline to restore the ocean to a specific ecological state, owing to the lack of scientific data. However, one can imagine that with the development of scientific research on the ocean, ecological baselines would be available to mobilize in future MRIs. Thus, marine rewilding actors deal with a "boundary object" (Star, Griesemer, 1989) at the intersection between several social and natural worlds, while striving to achieve their goals. One proposition that needs further research is the consideration that MRIs open up new marine ecological frontiers while changing the meaning and uses of the delineated areas.

  • 13 These will be studied in my Ph.D. thesis on marine and terrestrial rewilding in Europe.

66On the basis of this theoretical and practical overview, we present a few hypotheses and research questions13. MRIs seem to strengthen the connection between land and coastal areas through the techniques deployed. However, it is unclear whether, given the complexity of the sea, due to the diversity of its spaces (foreshore, coastline, open sea), the initiatives are intended to extend beyond the ocean and, if so, how these different components would fit together. Furthermore, with the densification of actors and their activities at sea, the implementation of MRIs may spark environmental controversies around the multiple uses of the sea. In summary, MRIs would seem to be an extension of the concept of rewilding, which was originally applied to land, but as we have shown here, it can be assumed that this matrix will be surpassed, owing to the physical, social and political complexity of marine spaces.

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Notes

1 In reference to the environmental historian Dolly Jørgensen’s article “Rethinking rewilding”, Geoforum, Vol.65, [online]. URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.11.016.

2 In the rest of the article, the abbreviation "MRIs" will be used to refer to "Marine Rewilding Initiatives."

3 Respectively: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, UN Environment Program, World Meteorological Organization

4 International Union for Conservation of Nature

5 It is also the name of a community-led initiative in Scotland: ‘Seawilding | Native Oyster and Seagrass Restoration, Scotland, United Kingdom’, [online]. URL: https://www.seawilding.org.

6 Charles Clover is a journalist (the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Times). He made a documentary on overfishing (The End of the Line, 2009) and co-founded the NGO Blue Marine Foundation in 2010, based in England.

7 John Turnbull is a research associate at the University of Sydney. He is a marine ecologist and social scientist specializing in sustainability, social values, and stewardship of marine ecosystems, including protected areas.

8 George Monbiot is a British writer and columnist for The Guardian. He published his book Feral in 2013, discussing and advocating for the expansion of rewilding.

9 "Rewilding the North Sea | ARK Rewilding Nederland", [online]. URL: https://arkrewilding.nl/gebieden/de-noordzee.

10 ‘NORA – Native Oyster Restoration Alliance’, 22 March 2023, [online]. URL: https://noraeurope.eu/.

11 ARK Rewilding Nederland. ‘Shellfish reefs’, 5 April 2018, [online]. URL: https://www.ark.eu/en/projects/shellfish-reefs.

12 Sussex Kelp Recovery Project, "Rewilding the Sussex Seabed", [online]. URL: https://sussexkelp.org.uk.

13 These will be studied in my Ph.D. thesis on marine and terrestrial rewilding in Europe.

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Référence électronique

Ariane Cornerier, « Thinking marine rewilding: adapting a terrestrial notion to the marine realm. Definition, practices and theories of marine rewilding », Cybergeo: European Journal of Geography [En ligne], Environnement, Nature, Paysage, document 1071, mis en ligne le 24 juillet 2024, consulté le 20 avril 2025. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/cybergeo/41153 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/122yc

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Ariane Cornerier

Centre d’Histoire Culturelle des Sociétés Contemporaines (CHCSC) et Laboratoire PRINTEMPS, Université de Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, Paris-Saclay, France, ariane.cornerier@sciencespo.fr

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