HIP BOOK REVIEW: Rewilding the Sea
How to Save Our Oceans By Charles Clover
REVIEW BY HATTIE ELLIS
Charles Clover’s first book, The End of the Line (2004), revealed the catastrophic effects of overfishing and reached a wide audience through a powerful feature documentary. Now comes his follow-up, Rewilding the Sea, about the two decades since, and his journey from despair to action and hope, despite much jeopardy and formidable obstacles.
The principle of rewilding is to leave nature alone to heal itself. The book tells stories about how this has been done underwater, including South Coast examples in the restored kelp forests near Brighton and the Lyme Bay Fisheries and Conservation Reserve off the Dorset coast. lymebayreserve.co.uk
NGOs (Non-governmental organisations) and ‘unofficial conservation’ show the way here, rather than governments. Clover is the co-founder of one. The Blue Marine Foundation (BLUE) is behind some ambitious marine eco-projects that help fishermen and conservationists work together, as well as being a good source of information and advocacy. bluemarinefoundation.com
THE FUTURE OF FISHING IS ARTISANAL, AS IT IS IN HASTINGS
The book focuses on the work Clover knows best through the foundation, accentuating the positive whilst also dramatising the nitty-gritty of change. The last chapter summarises his vision more broadly. He quotes the belief of the great fisheries scientist, Daniel Pauly, that the future of fishing is artisanal, as it is in Hastings. Fishing fleets in future will go out 40 miles at most, says Pauly, and the high seas must be left to allow eco-systems to flourish, providing a sustainable fishing industry. There is a bigger purpose to rewilding the sea: the climate catastrophe is entwined with the fate of the oceans because of their potential to store carbon. However, the British government’s attitude to this science is still in ‘analysis by paralysis’, says Clover.
This is one of many hard problems to solve. Clover nets these mostly into one chapter, ‘Enemies of Progress’. There’s the size of the rapacious Chinese fishing fleet. Then he lays out the scandal of how governments around the world subsidise boats that fish destructively, particularly by trawling, and ‘dark fleets’ that turn off their tracking devices to avoid detection of illegal fishing (BLUE is doing some brilliant work challenging this via shipping insurance). In terms of the UK, there’s the lack of meaningful protection in so-called Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Clover has gone from journalist to activist, calling most of the current MPAs ‘paper parks’; his name marks one of the large granite boulders dropped by Greenpeace in Dogger Bank in the middle of the North Sea to counteract the destructive trawlers breaking the law in one such area.
Still, a shift has happened since The End of the Line. Clover points out that in the 21st Century we’ve gone from just over one per cent of our oceans being protected to towards eight per cent. The aim is to get to at least 30 per cent. He thinks we have to make it happen in the next ten years.
GO SHOP WITH ‘THE BOYS ASHORE’ AT ROCK-A-NORE
The book’s angle is mostly about eco-systems and fishing rather than consumer choices. You have to try to draw your own conclusions about how it relates to what we buy in the shops, not least the way the EU’s distant-water fleet goes after tuna in the Indian Ocean; our fish is sourced globally and its provenance can be murky – another reason to go shop with ‘The Boys Ashore’ at Rock-a-Nore. What’s clear is that supporting activists and advocates is absolutely crucial to help bring about systemic change.
Overall, I finished the book feeling energised by how change can happen with patient and committed work even if it’s still a gleam of light rather than a certain bright future.
The issues of the oceans are engagingly covered in a recent Writers Rebel event, Oceans on the Brink. It brings together a range of people and NGOs, including BLUE, and is anchored by Sussex-based novelist Laline Paull, whose marine-based novel POD has been longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Available on YouTube:
youtube.com/live/Yq-pnabt4cA
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