This talk explores four diverse 'seascapes' that contribute to a 5-year EU project OPERAS on ecosystem services. It considers diverse approaches to successful restoration, and to what degree can the starting point not be what experts consider an optimal state of ecosystem condition, but what people want their seascapes to look like, and how protecting and restoring ecosystems can achieve their goals. The four sites are characterised by coastal rhizomatous root systems (dunes, seagrasses, marine and freshwater marshes) with core ecosystem services, e.g. coastal protection, fisheries, biodiversity, carbon and tourism. However, the baselines and drivers of environmental change across the sites reflect different time lines and pace of alterations; resulting in diverse states of ecological condition and rich evidence of natural history and social histories.
The coast of the Firth of Forth has been influenced by 100 years of seawalls for farmland. The lower Danube marshes have been conserved to support fisheries and farming for 50 years. Barcelona's dunes have been flattened over the past 20 years for beach tourism. The seagrasses of the Balearic Islands have also been impacted from tourism over 20 year resulting in smaller-scale impacts from anchoring and fishing. Each site illustrates radically different eco-engineering approaches along a passive-active restoration spectrum and very different ways of engaging with local communities. The cases illustrate the importance not only of stakeholder engagement, but perhaps most critically for the environmental trajectories of these sites to informed by the local people, reflecting their knowledge of the past and visions of the future. In this context, the concept of seascape is vital, as it links the domains of landscape, history and ecology in ways few other disciplines offer.