PRESS RELEASE : 2,000 oysters reintroduced into the Solent to boost biodiversity and improve water quality [August 2024]

The press release issued by the Ministry of Defence on 29 August 2024.

The Royal Navy is helping to reintroduce oysters to the Solent after nearly half a century thanks to a unique project opposite Portsmouth Naval Base.

• Joint MOD and charity conservation project will help improve the local marine environment.
• Native European flat oysters (Ostrea edulis) are being grown in crates in Portsmouth to re-establish a healthy population of the species.
• Few native European flat oysters remain in the area, having been replaced by the invasive Pacific oyster.

European flat oysters are being reintroduced to the Solent through a joint MOD conservation project aiming to boost marine life and help clean the waters of the strait between the Isle of Wight and the Hampshire coast.

It is hoped that the re-introduction of 2,000 oysters to the area after nearly half a century will encourage marine life back to heavily-used waters – the Royal Navy’s vessels form part of 130,000 movements per year around Portsmouth Harbour.

Several oyster crates have been installed by the project team on pontoons at the southern end of Whale Island to grow juvenile oysters – in a bid to re-establish a healthy population of the native species.

The initiative, known as the Whale Island Native Oyster Restoration Project, is a collaboration between the Salvage and Marine Operations (SALMO) Wrecks team, part of the MOD’s Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) organisation; the Royal Navy; the Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) and the Blue Marine Foundation (BMF) charity.

Defence Minister Luke Pollard said:

The Royal Navy has proudly used the Solent for centuries and is dedicated to supporting the local area, including finding ways to offset collective environmental impacts.

This is a brilliant initiative, and the partnership between the Royal Navy and partners shows that through collaboration, we can improve the marine environment and strengthen biodiversity – to the benefit of our forces too.

With £6,000 of funding from the Defence Infrastructure Organisation’s Conservation Stewardship Fund (DIO), the project was established and then managed for the Ministry of Defence by marine biologist Harriet Rushton, environmental manager for SALMO Wrecks. She said:

These oysters are being grown for conservation, re-introducing a lost native keystone species in the Solent, which will enhance biodiversity and help clean the water.

This shows the Ministry of Defence’s commitment to improving the UK’s ecosystem and helping to address climate change, thus contributing to minimising climate and ecosystem pressures on MOD training and operations.

The Solent was once the largest fishery in Europe for the flat (Ostrea edulis) oysters but there are few remaining, having been replaced by the invasive Pacific oyster (Magallana gigas), with potentially detrimental consequences to the local marine environment.

Rod Jones, the Royal Navy’s Senior Maritime Environmental Protection Adviser, believes if successful, there is potential for the initiative far beyond the Solent. He said:

If we can grow oysters here – which is far from an ideal environment as it’s a very industrial setting – then there are clearly opportunities to grow them elsewhere, other naval bases or MOD sites.

The Navy has been operating in the Solent for centuries so it is only right that we should be involved in protecting its environment.

A healthy and diverse population of oysters can benefit UK waters by:

• filtering the seas: a single adult oyster can filter up to 200 litres of water a day, removing chemicals and pollutants
• forming reefs: once released and settled, the oysters merge into one another to form reefs, providing shelter and food for marine life
• removing carbon from the environment: oysters extract carbon from seawater to build their shells. When they die, their shells become buried in sediment and transform into solid beds of limestone, efficiently removing carbon from the atmosphere