How to enhance ocean health and resilience with marine rewilding

A perspective paper by researcher Gavin Stark and colleagues lays out eight principles for 'marine rewilding,' an approach that goes beyond marine protected areas toward actively rebuilding food webs and ecosystem connectivity. Examples cited include reintroducing top predators like sharks, such as a project that has released more than 60 young leopard sharks into Raja Ampat, Indonesia's protected waters since 2024.

The paper stresses that people cannot be separated from the rewilding process, and that protecting migration corridors linking reefs, mangroves, seagrass and deep-sea habitats supports fisheries and tourism as much as biodiversity. Other principles include mitigating pollution, managing invasive species and ongoing monitoring so strategies can adapt.

Stark described the guidelines as a starting blueprint rather than a plan to recreate any past ecosystem, adding that implementation, not just the framework, is what remains to be done.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.