Nursery of the North Sea

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.

international political and economic interests

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. 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

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 manner? 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.

free space and learning community

The Embassy of the North Sea and Doggerland Foundation are advocating real protection of the North Sea, a much higher ambition for rewilding and democratisation of the North Sea politics. In the School of Dogger Bank we are organising a research and imagination programme. In addition to the legal procedures and the programme for rewilding and reef restoration, we are offering a free space and learning community that will work on various cases. In the coming years, School of Dogger Bank will collaborate with various social, cultural and academic institutions to give an impulse to the democratic conversation about the North Sea and Dogger Bank.

If we succeed in giving one of the busiest seas in the world time, peace and space to recover, then the Dogger Bank can not only become a strong and beating heart of the North Sea again, but also a source of inspiration for collaboration and large-scale restoration of the ecosystem.

Images:

Octopus, Joost van Uffelen