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Ebury imprint Witness Books has acquired Rewilding the Sea: How to Save Our Oceans, the new book by author and environmental campaigner Charles Clover.
Drummond Moir, deputy publisher at Ebury, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights for Witness Books from Ivan Mulcahy at MMB Creative. It will be published on 8th June 2022 to mark World Oceans Day.
A follow-up to Clover’s 2004 The End of the Line (Ebury), which won multiple awards and was adapted into an documentary, Rewilding the Sea will explore how to let nature itself repair the damage humans have done to the oceans.
“Overfishing is both one of the most devastating environmental problems on Earth and a major contributor to climate change,” the blurb reads. “Yet the appalling destruction it causes to marine creatures and habitats is solvable, and there is hope to be found in nature-based solutions. Rewilding the Sea shows what happens when you let nature repair the damage, whether overfishing of bluefin tuna across the Atlantic or the destruction of coral gardens by dredgers in Lyme Bay."
The book will explore how “marine carbon capture is becoming a vital ingredient in the wider solution to reversing climate catastrophe,” Ebury said. “In this urgent yet hopeful work, Charles Clover will show that we can store carbon and have more fish by stepping aside more often and trusting nature."
Broadcaster and author Stephen Fry said of the book: “I doubt any more important book will be published this year. Charles Clover tells with spirit and style an alarming and convincing story, yet it is one that offers hope and a way forward for our beleaguered oceans and us.”
Clover commented: “Imagine if the sea had all the species in it that it used to and we had brought back nature within sight of our shores. Well, that isn't a pipe dream any more, there are parts of the world where it has already happened or is happening. All we need to do is follow what is already happening somewhere and believe we can do it.”
Clover is co-founder and executive director of the Blue Marine Foundation, Britain’s leading ocean protection charity, which is dedicated to restoring the oceans by addressing overfishing. Prior to co-founding the charity, Clover was an environmental journalist writing principally for the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph for which he was environment editor for 22 years. He has been chosen as national journalist of the year by the British Environment & Media Awards three times.
Moir said: “There is great optimism about the benefits that rewilding and other nature-based solutions can bring to land; Charles Clover is here to show us that the same thinking can be applied to save our oceans and help us solve the climate crisis. Indeed the very week we signed this up, a ground-breaking Nature paper revealed that fishing boats trawling the ocean floor release as much CO2 as the entire aviation industry."
He added: "This awakening about the fate and significance of our oceans is only going to continue, and Rewilding the Sea will be the perfect book – urgent, yet hopeful – to drive the conversation forward and perhaps even change a few minds.”