Marine rewilding principles as a guiding framework for large-scale ecosystem restoration

Abstract

Marine ecosystems are increasingly degraded by climate change, overexploitation, pollution, and habitat loss, underscoring the need for approaches that restore ecological processes while supporting human well-being. Marine rewilding has emerged as a complementary strategy to traditional restoration by aiming to re-establish natural dynamics, trophic interactions, and seascape connectivity across diverse marine habitats. However, its application remains conceptually fragmented and lacks shared guidance for planning and evaluation. Drawing on ecological and social science values, we synthesize core ecological functions, climate resilience needs, community considerations, and governance decisions to propose eight transdisciplinary principles for marine rewilding. These principles integrate ecological integrity with social values, adaptive monitoring, anthropogenic stressor reduction, and inclusive knowledge systems to guide the recovery of self-sustaining, resilient marine ecosystems. By providing a coherent framework, our principles offer practitioners and policymakers a foundation for designing, assessing, and scaling effective marine rewilding initiatives across seascapes.