All hands on deck to restore oyster population in New York Harbor

Can a vanished coastal ecosystem in one of the world’s most densely developed cities be brought back to life? In 2022, employees in Swiss Re’s New York office chose Billion Oyster Project as their Charity of the Year. Billion Oyster Project is an ambitious effort to restore and reintroduce eastern oysters to the New York Harbor through education and community mobilisation. “Rewilding” oyster reefs promises to reduce water pollution, attract other native species back to this once thriving estuary, and help protect the city from storm damage and rising sea levels, safeguarding our planet in the long run.
Oyster larvae need shells as a substrate to grow on. So, to bolster sustainability further, Billion Oyster Project partner with more than 75 restaurants in New York City, collecting thousands of pounds of discarded scallop, oyster and clam shells each week. It then relies on local students, residents and corporate volunteers to help clean the shells and deploy budding reefs in the harbor.
Learn more about the project here: www.swissrefou...
Swiss Re
The Swiss Re Group is one of the world’s leading providers of reinsurance, insurance and other forms of insurance-based risk transfer, working to make the world more resilient. It anticipates and manages risk - from natural catastrophes to climate change, from ageing populations to cyber crime. The aim of the Swiss Re Group is to enable society to thrive and progress, creating new opportunities and solutions for its clients. Headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, where it was founded in 1863, the Swiss Re Group operates through a network of around 80 offices globally.
#newyork #rewilding #oysters #sustainability #cleanup

[@StCreed]

Great project. Do the oysters reproduce already, or is the water quality still not good enough for that?

[@AlexandreSgroi-gy6qi]

🦀🦀🦀

[@TheOtherKine]

But it's so polluted and covered in garbage from the last century and a half's worth of industrialisation, did you remove all the trash first and clean the area? lmao