Ellie Wharf's career developed against a backdrop of conflict. As Newsnight's senior foreign producer, she reported on Iraq and Afghanistan. Just two years ago she was photographing mass graves in Ukraine.
But, burnt out by the war and after raising ducks in Tanzania, Wharf has now settled in the quiet north. Norfolk coast. Here, along with her life and business partner Willie Athill, she embarked on a mission of a different kind: creating Europe's largest natural oyster reef.
The Luna Oyster Project, a joint project between Norfolk Seaweed and Oyster Heaven, aims to restore 4 million oysters in the North Sea using the first ever mass deployment of mother reef bricks.
These baked clay structures represent the skeleton of a lost world. Centuries of bottom trawling and human impact have denuded historic oyster reefs, leaving only scattered fragments of what was once a teeming underwater landscape across Britain and Europe. These long-absent reefs are now poised to usher in a new era of marine life along the coast.
New mother reefs of the Moon were recently installed 2 miles out to sea. In April, millions of young oysters from Morecambe Bay will be relocated to their nooks and crannies, slowly forming their own natural reefs that could one day link up with smaller restoration projects to the north and south, forming a living grid of biodiversity along England's North Sea coastline.
“It was very expensive and time-consuming,” Warf admitted. “Our license application was 280 pages long and cost six figures.” Obtaining a license took more than three years. George Birch of Oyster Heaven said: “None of the licenses care about you restoring biodiversity. We've had to overcome the same hurdles as oil and gas platforms.”
In addition to paperwork, the work itself requires delicate attention. “Oysters need to be cared for like babies,” Wharf said. “It's like a cute children's room. We're even thinking about playing sea music for them; it needs to be recorded on site because they're very sensitive to different sea sounds.” Burch called reefs “living soil,” sparks of life on a barren seafloor.
Oysters are amazingly prolific. Over several spawning seasons, over a life of 10 years or more, one female can release tens of millions of eggs, although the vast majority of them die before they can find a surface to cling to.
Oysters are not meant to be eaten, but restoration is more than just an environmental endeavor. It is also a community effort. The project involves local ecologists, project managers and crew, reviving the skills and livelihoods that once thrived on oyster and mussel farming.
Birch said: “Historically, the North Sea was crystal clear, unrecognizable from today's muted waters, because trillions of oysters filtered the waves, each little creature purifying 200 liters of water every day.”
Natural oyster reefs also act as natural wave breaks, stabilizing coastlines, promoting biodiversity and transforming flat seafloors into complex, three-dimensional ecosystems teeming with life.
“The reef will create an entire ecosystem on a barren seafloor,” Birch said. “We did a trial run on a virtually bare seabed in the Netherlands, and within a year the reefs had 12.7 million brand new crabs, worms, fish, microbes and fungi.”
That's why the project is largely funded by pet food company Purina. “They are buying supply chain resilience from us,” Birch said. “Purina sources fish from the North Sea for its products and needs to know that the resource will be sustainable and of high quality. By improving the marine environment, our oysters do just that for them.”
Oysters themselves are extremely sensitive, responding to light, pressure and sound. Not only can they change sex, but Birch said he realized that the female oysters in his hatchery only spawned eggs on Mondays.
“We thought, 'How do they know it's Monday?' – he said. “Then we realized that Mondays came after two quiet days off, indicating that they were aware of the world in the room around them over the weekend and therefore felt safe enough to mature their eggs. How great is that?”
From the chaos of war zones to the meticulous care of microscopic life, Whorf, Athill and Birch are growing tiny, insightful lives that will quietly transform the seafloor into vibrant ecosystems – hopefully transforming the North Sea.
“One of the great things I’ve discovered about oysters is how sensitive they are,” Birch said. “They can sense pressure changes in the air outside the water; if you open the door to the hatchery room, they all close their shells. They know you've entered.”
