Rewilding the Sea: How to Save Our Oceans is a book by Charles Clover. It was first released in June 2022. Clover is a journalist and the chairman of the Blue Marine Foundation, a conservation organisation which describes itself as being “dedicated to restoring the ocean to health by addressing overfishing.” He is also the author of the influential 2004 book The End of the Line which was made into a 2009 film of the same name.
The book covers a wide range of topics around ocean conservation, but everything that the book discusses is underpinned by the idea encapsulated by the book’s title. Clover believes that the marine environment can be restored by being rewilded. He describes this as simply “actively restoring the oceans [by] leaving them alone to recover.” He is sceptical of highly organized programmes led by experts and scientists which concentrate on a specific species (such as salmon) or features (such as reefs) as he believes that focusing attention on such a narrow part of the marine ecosystem leads to limited results. A far better course of action, according to Clover, is to simply stop exploiting the sea and let it recover on its own.
Clover’s view is that nature knows best and marine ecosystems can rapidly repair themselves and thrive once again (and in a relatively short time span) if they are left free of human impacts to rewild themselves. However, Clover warns that conventional wisdom is wary of this approach, and current thinking means scientists need to carry out studies, project what the outcomes of conservation measures will be and take the opinions and views of different stakeholders into account before any conservation action is taken. This leads to “paralysis by analysis” and little gets done.
Clover states in the first few pages that this book is a journey from “despair to hope” and it is certainly much more positive about the state of the world’s fish stocks and wider marine ecosystem than 2004’s The End of the Line. Clover says that things which were thought impossible when that book was published have been achieved and the current green agenda which is sweeping through world politics means that the tide is turning against damaging commercial fishing operations and other industrial activities which damage the marine environment.
He starts with a positive story about bluefin tuna returning to British and Irish waters. The species was around in high enough numbers to support a big game fishery for the species in the North Sea in the 1920s and 1930s, but then disappeared from British waters, possibly because its main prey of herring was overfished. After much campaigning, the EU finally agreed to reduce quotas for commercial bluefin tuna catches in the early 2000s and this, along with some particularly good spawning years for the species, has led to bluefin tuna becoming a much more common sight around the British Isles today.
Clover is not over-optimistic in this book and discusses the many threats and problems the seas and oceans still face. He states that industrialized commercial fishing is one of the “greatest environmental problems on earth” due to the way that trawling destroys the organisms and structures on the seabed and catches fish indiscriminately. The common claim of commercial fishermen that they are supplying much-needed food to people is disingenuous as this type of fishing causes so much damage to marine ecosystems that it actually results in them becoming much less productive and producing fewer fish over time. Another issue which Clover highlights is the recent research which strongly suggests that by churning up the seabed trawling releases huge amounts of carbon. Indeed, it may be the case that, across the world, commercial fishing is responsible for generating more carbon than the global aviation industry.
The impact that over a century of intensive commercial fishing has had on the world’s seas and oceans is clearly illustrated by Clover. He points out that sail-powered fishing boats of the late 1800s caught many more fish than diesel-powered factory trawlers of today which are festooned with technological aids to help them catch fish such as GPS navigation, seabed mapping and electronic fish finders. A modern trawler of today catches around 6 per cent of what 1800s sail-powered boats did, despite the huge technological advantages they possess. Similarly, since steam-powered trawlers began operating in the North Sea in the 1890s cod landings are down 87 per cent, hake 95 per cent, and halibut 99.8 per cent. A 1930s trawler working the Dogger Bank area of the North Sea could catch a ton of halibut a day. Today UK, Dutch, German and Danish sectors of the North Sea produce less than two tons of halibut per year. While these statistics paint a depressing picture of the current state of the seas, this is a positive and optimistic book, and Clover believes that the balance of power is moving away from the industrial fishing industry and measures will soon be in place to prioritise conservation over commercial fishing.
Clover cites specific examples of rewilding being put into action and the amazing results it can quickly achieve. These include the restoration of oyster beds in North America, the huge Chagos Island Marine Reserve in the Indian Ocean, and closer to home, the recovery of seagrass beds in Lyme Bay when dredging for shellfish was banned in the area.
The book is measured in tone and markedly less polemical than The End of the Line. For example, when discussing the establishment of a marine protected area around the British territory of Ascension Island in the South Atlantic, Clover explains how it is important to reach a consensus between environmental groups who want the area designated, politicians who will pass the necessary laws and local inhabitants who will have to live with the impact of the newly-established protected area. In this way creating a protected marine area is much more complicated than simply implementing a blanket ban on fishing and other ways of exploiting the sea in a certain zone.
Bognor in Sussex is another area where rewilding has produced results very quickly. The kelp seaweed beds which provide a home to a multitude of small sea creatures and in turn attract larger fish have been repeatedly destroyed through trawling. When commercial fishing in the area was eventually banned they grew back in an incredibly short amount of time (seaweed in UK waters can grow 1cm per day) and through this form of rewilding the health of the sea off the coast of Bognor was restored very quickly.
Clover highlights subsidies as a major barrier to restoring the world’s seas and oceans. Subsidies are money paid out by governments to fund commercial fishing and allow fishing to continue when the amount of fish caught is unprofitable, or the areas being fished (such as the deep sea) require methods and fuel costs which are so expensive these areas could not be fished without being subsidised. China spends around $16.6 billion to fund its fishing fleet to travel to distant waters and access the fishing grounds of poorer nations. The USA also spends around $1 billion and the EU over $400 million. This is despite the EU voting to end subsidies in 2008, but money continues to be spent on making fishing boats more fuel-efficient and training young fishermen. Clover notes that World Trade Organisation talks to end subsidies on a global basis have been going on for over twenty years with little progress made.
Throughout the book, Clover is at pains to point out that commercial fishing does not need to be banned. Indeed, Clover states that in most cases local communities want commercial fishing to take place as it is an important and long-standing industry which is woven into the fabric of the community. He states deciding between conservation and fishing is always a “difficult balance” but damaging forms of commercial fishing – by which he almost always means trawling and dredging – do need to stop and be replaced by more sustainable methods such as using pots and traps or catching fish by hook and line.
Rewilding the Sea is different to The End of the Line. It is less polemical and angry, and much more positive and optimistic. Clover outlines real progress which has been made in restoring the health of marine ecosystems, both around the British Isles and across the world. However, he is still more than willing to point out the issues which the oceans still face and the many challenges which need to be overcome in order to restore the seas and oceans. His approach is refreshing in the way it eschews over-analytical and scientific solutions and makes it clear that in the vast majority of cases we simply need to stop exploiting the sea and allow it to rewild itself. This may prove controversial. Scientists may believe that their expertise is being ignored and find themselves bypassed if we simply sit back and allow to seas to rewild rather than follow their studies and advice. Commercial fishermen, specifically those who fish with trawls or dredges, will find much to complain about in this book as the reality of what their fishing methods are doing to the marine environment is so clearly described. But, as stated above, Clover takes a nuanced view of commercial fishing and is broadly in favour of it – as long as it is sustainable and does not damage and degrade the seas and ocean.
A hopeful and highly readable book, Rewilding the Sea, is sure to become as influential and highly rated as The End of the Line. Rewilding the Sea is available to buy from Amazon by clicking here.