As part of the Solent Seascape Project, Blue Marine is restoring four hectares of native oyster reef, a once-thriving ecosystem and industry that has all but vanished. The new reef will support the return of Ostrea edulis (European native oyster), a species critical for marine biodiversity and natural water filtration.
This reef extension comes after clear signs of success from earlier work: the 0.25-hectare Phase One section of the Hamble reef is now supporting live, breeding oysters with increased biodiversity, a rare and promising result in an area where natural recovery has not occurred.
“Native oysters are ecosystem engineers, but they need to be in proximity to each other to breed,” says Dr. Luke Helmer, Restoration Scientific Officer at Blue Marine. “Each adult oyster can filter up to 200 liters of seawater a day and release over 1 million larvae, helping to clean the Solent, expand the population, and support a web of marine life. Restoring them is essential for biodiversity, for the health of our coastal waters, and for people who live and work near them.”
Later this month, a team of 150+ volunteers from all over England will clean around 10,000 oysters over three days at the University of Portsmouth’s Institute of Marine Science. The oysters will be scrubbed to remove any other species and given a quick chlorine bath as a process for biosecurity, then deployed with the help of local fishers who will ferry them by boat to the reef site.
This hands-on approach, involving the local community, scientists, and fishers, is at the heart of the project. It’s one of the largest volunteer-led marine restoration efforts of its kind in the UK.
Key Dates:
- Clutch deployment: March 14
- Mobilization and pre-deployment survey: March 15 & 16
- Oyster scrubbing at the University of Portsmouth: April 29 – 30 & May 1
- Oyster deployment in Hamble: May 2
Crucial to the Solent’s Health
Native oysters in the Solent have declined by over 95% due to overfishing, habitat loss, and pollution. The native oyster reef ecosystem is now classified as ‘collapsed’ by the IUCN. This restoration is part of a broader national and European-wide effort to reverse that collapse, led by marine scientists, non-governmental organizations, and coastal communities.
The reef will also serve as a living laboratory: hydrophones already in place have recorded oyster activity [HERE], offering rare acoustic evidence that the oysters and species they support are thriving. These soundscapes help researchers better understand reef health and ecosystem behavior.
Unlike the invasive Pacific oyster, which is already common in the Hamble, the native oyster forms complex reef structures in sub-tidal areas that benefit a wide range of species, from crabs and sea bass to sponges and sea squirts.
Alongside Blue Marine and the University of Portsmouth, the Solent Seascape Project has support from the RSPB, Project Seagrass, Chichester Harbour Conservancy, Coastal Partners, the Environment Agency, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, Isle of Wight Estuaries, and Natural England.
