Seagrass ecology and restoration have been my blue-green world for over 3 decades now. Their unique niche and impressive ecosystem services fascinate me. While initially focusing on seagrass basic needs such as nutrients (not too high!) and water dynamics (not too low AND not too high!), in the second decade of my career I became intrigued by the reverse: how do seagrasses change their environment. They feedback on the physical, chemical and biological surroundings. This shapes their ecosystem services. For example, their sediment stabilizing capacity is the basis for the services of coastal protection, carbon sequestration and water purification. Sediment stabilization is also a self-facilitating property and consequently population dynamics are not simply linearly related to environmental factors, but can have tipping points. For restoration success this implies that a critical mass of plants (or mimics) may be needed! While we made important scientific progress during this period, I was annoyed but also challenged by low success rates and huge unpredictability of restoration results. Fortunately, I discovered that everybody worldwide had this problem. Apparently, we have to deal with this! Enlarging the restoration scale is definitely one of the key solutions¹.

Further broadening my scope during the third decade of my career gave me more perspective on the land-ocean interface including ecosystems like mangroves, corals, saltmarshes and shellfish reefs. We dove into the far past when we developed a dynamic view on ‘the pristine’ when seagrass landscapes were frequented by megaherbivores and megapredators². Joining forces with social scientists deepened my view on coastal management and so-called ‘wicked problems’. From them I learned that interaction with stakeholders should be based on transaction rather than transmission³, and tools to realize that. Moreover, I feel that I can now better distinguish between realistic and unrealistic solutions. However, seemingly unrealistic solutions, or at least non-conventional measures may be needed for the future era. In 2021, we published a roadmap for “Rewilding the sea with domesticated seagrass”, where we advocate seagrass mariculture to prevent damage to donor beds⁴.

At the interface between domestication (mariculture) and rewilding, novel land use transitions may lead to enhanced sustainability. Exciting challenges exist to optimize between ecosystem goods and services, between human use and biodiversity. Rewilding may help to make these optimizations. I am happy to help define and understand the concept of rewilding, as well as help developing principles, parameters and guidelines for applying rewilding approaches, by joining the IUCN Rewilding Working Group.

References

¹van Katwijk MM, Thorhaug A, Marbà N, Orth RJ, Duarte CM, Kendrick GA, Althuizen IHJ, Balestri E, Bernard G, Cambridge ML, Cunha A, Durance C, Giesen W, Han Q, Hosokawa S, Kiswara W, Komatsu T, Lardicci C, Lee KS, Meinesz A, Nakaoka M, O’Brien KR, Paling EI, Pickerell C, Ransijn AMA, Verduin JJ (2016) Global analysis of seagrass restoration: the importance of large-scale planting. Journal of Applied Ecology 53: 567-578

²Christianen MJA, van Katwijk MM, van Tussenbroek BI, Pagès JF, Ballorain K, Kelkar N, Arthur R, Alcoverro T (2021) A dynamic view of seagrass meadows in the wake of successful green turtle conservation. Nature Ecology & Evolution 5:553-555 Open access

³Hanssen L., Rouwette E, van Katwijk MM (2009) The role of ecological science in environmental policy making: from a pacification toward a facilitation strategy. Ecology and Society 14 (1): 43. Open access

⁴van Katwijk MM, van Tussenbroek BI, Hanssen SV, Hendriks AJ, Hanssen L (2021) Rewilding the sea with domesticated seagrass. Bioscience 71:1171-1178 Open access

The International Union on the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Resolution WCC 2020 Res 085, which underpins the formation of our inter-commissional working group tasked with establishing principles, guidelines and an IUCN policy on rewilding, was adopted by IUCN Council early 2021.

Since then, a number of developments have occurred. First, nearly all commissions have appointed focal points, and two secretariat focal points have been allocated to this resolution.

Second, two co-chairs for the rewilding working group have been appointed: Nathalie Pettorelli and James Butler. Nathalie is a senior scientist at the Zoological Society of London; her expertise includes biodiversity monitoring, environmental management, and conservation biology. James is a senior scientist based at CSIRO in Australia; his expertise includes sustainability, resilience, human-wildlife conflict and adaptive co-management. Nathalie is a member of the Mangrove Specialist Group while James is a member of the Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group.

The two co-chairs have now established basic principles around how Resolution 85 should be delivered and terms of reference for working groups members. They are currently finalising working group membership, and want this working group to work in an extremely transparent way – meaning that all members will be asked to disclose any IUCN membership and conflict of interest, and that regular updates on progress will be posted on this website.