UK Nature and Environment

My TL;DR:

The five-year Wilder Humber programme seeks to restore the seagrass meadow at Spurn Point. It also aims re-build the estuary’s lost native oyster population and halt the decline of other precious habitats such as salt marshes and sand dunes.

Thriving seagrass meadows can be havens for nature, providing a breeding ground for juvenile fish and a feeding ground wading birds as well as absorbing carbon dioxide at a rate which is estimated to be between and two and four times faster than a rainforest.

Seagrass can also help improve water quality by removing excess nutrients, chemical contaminants and biotoxins.

A vast oyster reef once stretched from the mouth of the Humber to the Thames estuary. However, this has all but vanished. The small number of surviving fragments of this biogenic reef considered too isolated and depleted to be able to recover naturally.

The Humber programme is giving mother nature a helping hand. The goal is to reintroduce 500,000 native oysters to the area.

Once in the estuary, their filter feeding system naturally helps clean the water by removing algae, organic matter and excess nutrients as they grow.