On a late summer's day, various boats sail in and out of Lymington's harbor(港口) and a large boat slowly stops at the port. Hidden beneath the ferry port is a little-known project, one that could quietly change the quality of the marine environment along the UK's coastline.
Many sets of specially designed oyster breeding(牡蛎养殖)cages are placed under the port. One big oyster can actually produce a million babies each year. So, all those oysters in the cages are fantastic at helping to increase the population that faces a severe decline.
A combination of loss of natural habitat on the seabed over harvesting and pollution has destroyed around 95 percent of native oysters in UK waters. Oysters are best known as a delicacy, but their role in the marine environment is a far more important one. They are ecosystem engineers. A single oyster can filter(过滤)around200 liters of water per day. So, when oysters come together, they're able to vastly improve the coastal water quality.
While the remarkable recovery might seem like an impossible task, marine scientists are confident this could become reality. "Each female adult oyster can produce between one and two million babies, so you don't need huge amounts of oysters to increase the population, "says Dr Luke Helmera marine scientist. "The problem is with the next step of actually providing them with somewhere to settle and live. "
Oysters are quite happy to find a home on a rockor stone but the challenge for conservationists is to recreate that environment for them and to protect them. For now, these new oysters are being kept out of harm's way in conservation areas but as they start to reproduce people could again harvest them from the sea bed. The hope is they will be better protected.