By ESTEBAN GUERRA, age 12
Billion Oyster Project is an organization that is trying to return the oysters back to their natural habitat and prevent them from extinction by creating more oyster reefs in New York Harbor. The reason why they might go extinct is because people continue to harvest and eat them too quickly, leaving them very little time to continue growing. Billion Oyster project has helped restore oyster reefs in 19 acres of New York Harbor, but in the past there were 220,000 acres of oyster reefs in the harbor. Oyster reefs provide a habitat for hundreds of species.
The organization has set a goal of 1 billion oysters in the harbor because once they reach that number, the oysters can start sustaining themselves. Now there are 122 million oysters in the harbor. Creating more oyster reefs is also beneficial to us because it will allow the harbor to be filtered in an eco-friendly way, and it also protects New York City from floods during storms. Oysters are eco-friendly filters because they filter the water as they eat, which helps clarify the water and remove certain pollutants, including nitrogen. An adult oyster can clean up to 50 gallons of water in a day.
Billion Oyster Project is a nonprofit organization funded by private donors, sponsors that work with oysters, and grants from New York City. Billion Oyster Project makes oyster reefs by getting some oysters and giving them shells in the water, giving the oysters space to reproduce and inhabit each shell.
“The key to solving the challenges of climate change is changing human behavior, and humans aren’t going to change their behavior without a direct connection to the natural world,” said Pete Malinowski, the founder of Billion Oyster Project.
Malinowski lived with his parents in Connecticut, where they had an oyster farm that allowed him to learn about the agriculture of oysters. Later, he became a professor for the New York Harbor School. With his knowledge of oysters and the harbor, he envisioned the rehabilitation of these oysters, which then led him to found the project in 2014. It is estimated that they will reach a billion oysters by 2035.
