Thomas Rammelt started as a barrister in the field of nature, environmental, construction and spatial planning law. Later he coordinated the nature protection program of the North Sea Foundation, worked with WWF-Netherlands on the North Sea program, and with ARK Natuurontwikkeling on the Rewilding the North Sea program. Building on the lessons he learned, Thomas, from end 2022, will work for the North Sea in the freshly instituted Doggerland Foundation. Planting a flag on the Dogger Bank, he combines several approaches: legal advocacy to make governments living up to at least the legislative minimum levels of marine nature protection we agreed on; building active nature restoration projects on the Dogger Bank to show what a restored North Sea could look like; and shifting current perceptions of nature protection. In the end it boils down for humans to take a step back and allow the natural system on which we depend to retake its resilience. And hereby respect what we don’t know, and not let knowledge gaps delay our course of actions. As a starting permaculturist Thomas also tries to put this in practice in his own backyard.