The Sustainable Eel Group is pleased to highlight the publication of a guidebook from the Somerset Eel Recovery Project, which draws on art and culture, ecology and geography, lived and imagined experience, to offer a distinctive perspective on the European eel. Originally conceived as an interpretive resource for the Avalon Marshes Centre on the Somerset Levels, the book has now been made available as a polished, printed text. Its representational scope has been expanded beyond a fixed geography, and its inherent themes and ideas have been interpreted through graphic design and illustration, to support close engagement with rivers, wetlands, and other freshwater environments across Europe and North Africa.
The publication reflects a growing recognition that successful species recovery depends not only upon scientific research, effective policy, and practical conservation measures, but also on more meaningful cultural and emotional connections between people and the natural world. Whilst habitat restoration, migration barrier removal, sustainable management, and traceability remain essential pillars of eel recovery, long-term success also requires public understanding of why the species matters and why healthy aquatic ecosystems deserve stronger protections. This guidebook contributes to that broader conversation by encouraging readers to experience landscapes through the lens of the eel’s remarkable life story.
Author Emmeline Ostler describes herself as ‘a student of eels’, recognising that eels have opened up new ways for understanding freshwater ecologies, biodiversity crises, and her own journey. She holds a Master’s degree from Harvard Divinity School, where her research examined human relationships with nature, particularly through spiritual values and practices. And since graduating, her work has spanned environmental conservation projects around the world, with a focus on sacred land protection, the restoration of freshwater fisheries, and the relationships between people and other species. This has included work in eel conservation with SERP, SEG, and Indigenous communities in the United States.
Her guidebook grew from the creation of an Eel Pilgrimage Trail comprising eight stops along the South Drain, a watercourse that passes through important eel habitat within the Somerset Levels. As the accompanying text developed, the project team recognised that the reflections and activities could serve a wider purpose beyond the trail itself.
As Emmeline explains:
The text in this book was initially created for an Eel Pilgrimage Trail along the South Drain in the Somerset Levels. That trail consists of eight stops along a path which courses through essential eel habitat.
As the text was created, we at the Somerset Eel Recovery Project felt that it had become something which could be carried into any place, to assist in deeper engagement with that place.
And so, we made a book.
This is yours to use, in any place. However, because this is a book which centers on fish, the activities may be most resonant near water.
The publication is not intended as a field guide or scientific manual as such. Instead, it offers a method for observing, reflecting upon, and engaging with landscapes, encouraging readers to consider ecological relationships that often go unnoticed. Drawing inspiration from the extraordinary life cycle of the European eel – from spawning in the Sargasso Sea to growth in European and North African inland waters before the return migration to the Atlantic – the book presents the eel as a source of reflection on movement, transformation, and interconnectedness.
The introduction sets out this perspective:
Throughout their life cycle, eels swim from the Sargasso Sea to the freshwaters of Europe and North Africa, then back again. Along their journey, they change form over five times. For this reason, we see eels as teachers of pilgrimage.
It continues by proposing pilgrimage as ‘a process of self-transformation via sensitive movement through place and encounter with the Other’, framing ecological awareness as something developed only partly through conventional knowledge, and primarily through attentive experience of landscapes and the species that inhabit them.
Complementing the text are a series of striking original prints by Julia Manning, an award-winning painter-printmaker whose work celebrates the natural world. An elected member of the Society of Wildlife Artists, Julia’s prints are held in galleries, museums and both public and private collections throughout the United Kingdom. The illustrations featured in this publication are drawn from her acclaimed series Decline of the Eels, created following collaboration with internationally recognised eel expert Andy Don.
Reflecting on the work, Julia writes:
Working with Andy Don, an International Eel Expert, I have been educated on the incredible – implausible sometimes – life of Eels. His mentoring inspired me to create these prints to raise the awareness of the problems of why they are declining so dramatically. They are just an indicator of what is happening to much of our wildlife today.