Journal article
Five ways seascape ecology can help to achieve marine restoration goals
Landscape Ecology, Vol.40(6), pp.1-19
2025
PMCID: PMC12134013
PMID: 40475222
Abstract
Context
Marine restoration is increasingly recognized as a key activity to regenerate ecosystem integrity, safeguard biodiversity, and enable ocean sustainability. Global policies such as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework include area-based targets to improve ecosystem integrity and connectivity. Achieving these targets requires scaling up restoration in ecologically and socially meaningful ways.
Objectives
The objective was to establish a consistent language and framework for seascape restoration practitioners that complements existing marine restoration guidelines and can help to achieve cross-scale restoration targets.
Methods
We proposed that the integration of the 5Cs of seascape ecology—Context, Configuration, Connectivity, Consideration of scale, and Culture— can offer a valuable framework for advancing marine restoration practice and policy. We synthesized existing ecological and social science evidence to demonstrate how the 5Cs framework can be applied to seascape restoration efforts.
Results
We established a consistent language and framework for marine restoration practitioners and recommended four key operational pathways: (1) focusing on the recovery of interconnected habitats across the land–sea interface; (2) integrating the 5Cs from site selection through to monitoring; (3) representing social, historical, cultural, and ecological variables when assessing site suitability; and (4) fostering transdisciplinary collaborations to support integrative, multifaceted projects.
Conclusions
Integrating landscape ecology concepts and methods into coastal restoration will enable the effective scaling up of regenerative actions. Applying the 5Cs can help achieve global restoration targets through more strategic, inclusive, and effective marine restoration across coastal seascapes.
Details
- Title
- Five ways seascape ecology can help to achieve marine restoration goals
- Authors
- L. M. Wedding (Corresponding Author) - University of OxfordC. E. Stuart - University of OxfordL. L. Govers - University of GroningenR. J. Lilley - University of GroningenA. Olds - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Science, Technology and EngineeringJ. Preston - University of PortsmouthL. E. Tavasi - University of OxfordS. J. Pittman - University of Oxford
- Publication details
- Landscape Ecology, Vol.40(6), pp.1-19
- Publisher
- Springer Dordrecht
- Date published
- 2025
- DOI
- 10.1007/s10980-025-02099-9
- ISSN
- 1572-9761
- PMID
- 40475222; PMC12134013
- Copyright note
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Data Availability
- No datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
- Grant note
- This work was supported by the John Fell Oxford University Press Research Fund to LMW and a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Oxford Doctoral Training Partnership in Environmental Research (NE/S007474/1) to CES.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Science, Technology and Engineering
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991131206202621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web Of Science research areas
- Ecology
- Geography, Physical
- Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
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