Yamaha Rightwaters and Georgia Southern University (GSU) have initiated a conservation project for oyster bed restoration and to assess carbon burial potential off the coast of Georgia.
Yamaha Rightwaters, the national sustainability program for Yamaha Marine’s conservation and water quality efforts, will fund GSU’s habitat restoration efforts and data collection used to determine the carbon-sequestration potential of Georgia’s oyster reefs. The project will place about 6 tons of oyster shells at two locations, where they will encourage growth of new, native Eastern oysters.
Eastern oysters maintain a number of benefits for marine life, serving as a habitat for fish and crabs, reducing carbon dioxide, and lessening ocean acidification. Oyster populations have declined in recent years because of overharvesting, habitat loss, and poor water quality, so GSU and other research organizations have been working to restore the population. Assessing the potential for carbon sequestration within oyster beds would offer yet another environmental benefit as carbon capture technology evolves and researchers explore ways to most effectively store captured carbon.
The GSU team worked with Texas A&M in 2022 to assess the role of oyster reefs in capturing and storing carbon in the Gulf of Mexico, and this project will assess similar abilities of oysters in the Atlantic.
“Oyster restoration is a critical component of protecting and restoring Georgia’s coastal ecosystems,” said Paul Medders, habitat enhancement and restoration unit lead for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Coastal Resources Division. “This project will help to reestablish oyster reefs in the North Newport River, which will benefit both wildlife and people.”
Carbon capture has been identified as a necessary technology for meeting global climate goals, and investment in carbon capture technology has gone up accordingly.
Ocean-based solutions have presented answers to handling climate change-caused carbon emissions, largely by using the wide-ranging abilities of the ocean's inherent, natural processes. Recent investments have focused more on marine carbon capture and removal, or capturing carbon and storing it as natural materials already present in the ocean.
Nature-based solutions provide a carbon capture option that may actually benefit ecosystems rather than potentially harm them further. The promise of nature-based carbon storage solutions may also help quell skepticism surrounding storage of carbon deep in the ocean.
Since oyster farming has been found to have immense carbon sequestration abilities, this new project should identify how to best store captured carbon, supplementing oysters’ natural abilities.
