Manifest for the Dogger Bank

read our manifest Making Room for the Dogger Bank here

read the Foreword bellow

In the coming years, the Doggerland Foundation and the Embassy of the North Sea will work with an extensive network of Dutch and European partners, ecologists, policy makers, lawyers, artists and designers to better represent the interests of the Dogger Bank, an undersea sandbank in the heart of the North Sea. Completely out of our sight, it is difficult to imagine this ecosystem, also called the nursery of the North Sea, despite the severely degraded state it is currently in. With an area of ​​over 25,000 km2, the Dogger Bank forms the heart of a network of marine protected areas that are necessary and required to restore the North Sea ecosystem and provide new opportunities.

We are working with the Dogger Bank Coalition under the name School of Dogger Bank on a multi-year international program aimed at the recovery and legal, cultural and political representation of the Dogger Bank. If we manage to give an area in the busiest sea in the world time, peace and space to recover itself, the Dogger Bank can not only become a strong and beating heart of the North Sea again, but also a global source of inspiration for limitless cooperation and large-scale ecosystem restoration.

In the coming years, Doggerland Foundation and the Embassy of the North Sea will collaborate with an extensive network of European partners, ecologists, policy-makers, legal experts, and designers to improve the representation of the North Sea’s interests. Our focus is on the Dogger Bank, an underwater sandbank at the heart of the North Sea. Covering an area of over 25,000 km2, the Dogger Bank forms the core of a network of marine protected areas essential for restoring the North Sea ecosystem.

The Dogger Bank is a unique area with a high diversity of habitats and species—a vital nursery for sharks, rays, herring, and cod, as well as a year-round rich feeding ground for whales and seabirds. It is also a cradle of stories about the past, present, and future of our relationship with the sea. This submerged land once connected the United Kingdom to Europe until the end of the Ice Age, when Neanderthals hunted woolly rhinoceroses, mammoths, and reindeer there. With the onset of the Holocene, around 7,000 years ago, the inhabitants of the Dogger Bank faced significant changes to the climate that caused rising sea levels, eventually submerging the area beneath the waves. The many archaeological finds—collected by fisher men, beachcombers, and researchers—connect us not only to our distant ancestors on the Dogger Bank but also place our own challenges with climate change, rising sea levels, coastal erosion, and reclaimed and lost land into an evolutionary perspective.

Divided into British, Dutch, German, and Danish territory, the Dogger Bank is a stage for numerous international political and economic interests, including shipping, fishing, and energy. However, through the Dogger Bank Coalition, we envision different futures for this area: the regeneration and abundant flourishing of the underwater ecosystem. With a programme focused on passive and active ecosystem restoration and improved representation of the North Sea in the legal, public, and political domains, we aim to bring that future closer in the coming years.

On paper, the Dogger Bank may appear well-protected, but in reality, this marine area is still regarded as an industrial resource, with ecological ambitions falling far short. The Dogger Bank serves as a symbol of our relationship with the sea: we not only use it, we exhaust it. At the same time, we attempt to create a parallel reality on paper, suggesting that the sea is being protected. Scientific reports, policy documents, laws and regulations, new ambitions, and objectives continue to pile up, but effective protective measures are virtually nonexistent.

After years of discussions, only five percent of the Dutch North Sea is protected from bottom trawling, while other harmful activities—such as intensive shipping, the discharge of hazardous substances, sand, shell, and gravel extraction, the construction of wind farms, oil and gas drilling, the installation of cables and pipelines, military exercises, and the detonation of explosives—continue virtually unabated across the North Sea. Research shows that the alternative reality of control on paper, scientific studies, and ever more North Sea policies have led to no improvements for marine life. The only certainty we have now is that the North Sea will continue to deteriorate if we keep creating more policies while taking little action.

Why did we begin to accept that the North Sea could be used as an industrial zone? The North Sea is a living entity, with all the characteristics of a person or a family member—an entity deserving a better place at the negotiating table. But to actually view the sea in this way? Unfortunately, we’re not there yet. The North Sea is an overburdened body of water. Dutch society—particularly politicians, policymakers, and the private sector—neglects critical scientific knowledge and the precautionary principle. Instead, we recklessly rush forward, driven by an almost religious belief in technological feasibility. Fundamental choices, improvements, and negotiations between ourselves and our environment are repeatedly deferred.

What are the challenges that need to be overcome? How can the Embassy of the North Sea and the Doggerland Foundation position themselves in relation to these issues? Drawing on years of collaborative work in the North Sea, we share in this manifesto our vision for the relationship with the North Sea and the Dogger Bank, providing context for the multi-year programme we are developing with a broad coalition of European partners. Together with ecologists, researchers, legal experts, citizens, policymakers, landscape architects, and artists from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Germany, we are working on future visions, legal actions, large-scale reef restoration in a ‘School of Dogger Bank’. All of this serves the purpose of creating a thriving and resilient underwater world on the Dogger Bank—a nursery for the North Sea.

With the Dogger Bank Coalition, we are focused on improving the legal, cultural, and political representation of the Dogger Bank. We aim to explain why legal action is necessary to safe- guard the minimum standards of conservation, provide concrete steps to democratise the conversation about the sea, and outline a path towards Rewilding, the restoration of reefs, tranquility, and space on the Dogger Bank.

If we succeed in giving one of the world’s busiest seas the time, tranquility, and space it needs to recover—and actively support its restoration where necessary—the Dogger Bank can once again become a strong, beating heart of the North Sea and a global source of inspiration for boundless collaboration and large-scale ecosystem restoration

embassy of the north sea & Doggerland Foundation

Christiane Bosman, Harpo ‘t Hart, Milo Laureij, Thijs Middeldorp, Thomas Rammelt, Emilie Reuchlin

Photo: Common skate, Dipturus batis. Peter Verhoog