Hong Kong created the coral of Oister on the sea wall next to the airport. You can learn Canada from it

Oyster Farming has occurred in Hong Kong for hundreds of years. Traditional agricultural practices, which are the harvest of oysters and then the retaliatory substrate, including shells in water until oyster grow, is one of the reasons that make the hiring population completely disappeared from the wild.

Now farms contribute to the main knowledge and supply the oysters themselves to restore the natural shells.

About 85 percent of the incest reefs in the world have been lost. The remaining oyster beds in Hong Kong are not recognized by the government as an environmental aspect, and therefore not granted protection.

But recent recovery projects are trying to change this, according to Marin Tomas, Assistant Director for Nature Conservancy Hong Kong.

Thomas explained that the restoration of oyster coral revolves around the restoration of land habitats – similar to the restoration of coral reefs – instead of restoring coral reefs to the perpetrator for consumption.

One of the projects to restore coral reefs in Hong Kong benefits from an unlikely location: outside the sea walls of Hong Kong International Airport. I have used the living oysters that are grown in laboratories and from the local oyster farms for the coral reef seed. Thomas says he is the first of its kind in the area in an attempt to create live coral reefs along the sea walls.

Thomas says that oyster coral reefs can be developed on other marine walls of reclaimed lands (this is very common in Hong Kong), if these areas have the original oyster reefs before and appropriate environmental conditions, which will apply to many areas of the Perle River Delta.

This approach has the ability to repeat it in Canada, also, depending on the location and type of marine walls, according to Ramón Filguera, a professor in the Department of Maritime Affairs at Dalhousie University.

But both Hong Kong and Canada are behind efforts in the United States, where there is an increasing awareness of the benefits provided by oyster coral reefs such as increasing fish numbers, regulating water quality and Providing coastal protection against erosion from storms.

Not only for the sake of roughness

More than a thousand years ago, when Hong Kong was just a group of small hunting villages, thousands of tons per year were bulldozed of shellfish and full oyster shells were used to build buildings across the Guangdong area. When the shells are burned, they turn into lime and raw materials used to make cement. It was the industry, which flourished in the nineteenth century, was the one that saw almost the removal of almost all wild shellfish reefs.

While people often connect oysters to food, they also benefit many other functions. Coral reefs organize water quality by liquidating molecules, increasing fish groups by providing nursery lands and creating coastal reefs, natural coastal protection against storms and corrosion, and problems that are intensified as a result of climate change.

The United States is leading the road when it comes to the restoration and enhanced by Oyster REF, according to Felizira, who said there is also a lack of awareness by decision makers and societies in Canada with the benefits of coral reefs.

He referred to the New York billionaire project, which is an initiative to re -ambition that planted 150 million larvae in its port to improve water quality and coast protection.

While the human walls are built in Nova Scotia, Veligoria says he believes that coral reefs will be a long -term supplement and a sustainable for those structures that the local community may not have to know.

“If you look at projects and investment in the United States, you cannot compare them with Canadian investment. They are peanuts.”

An example of this: In Harris Kreik, in the state of Maryland, the project to restore the oyster coral cost $ 29 million, which is part of a wider project in the Chessabik Bay. Within three years, it was more than that in increasing the production of fish fisheries – everything from fish to crabs to the prawns to the other shell – which in turn benefits the local fishing community, according to Biden Russell, assistant director of the environment and biological diversity at Hong Kong University.

“They are getting more than 100 percent annually,” he said. “It is renewable, every year.”

Unlikely shellfish coral reefs

A bright point in Hong Kong is a water project near Hong Kong International Airport. The airport was almost completely built on the reclaimed lands, in an area that was one day a prosperous oyster, according to Thomas. But it was a deteriorating environment full of challenges. Since it is a restricted area, it was protected by reality and gave permission to restore coral reefs.

Last year, recycled concrete in the ocean was placed along the 500-meter naval wall-because the restoration of coral reefs requires the re-insertion of the solid substrate into the ocean until the shellfish is thrown. Then it was planted with the original shellfish and recycled shells, which are provided by oyster farmers, as well as the larvae that are planted in the laboratory at Hong Kong University.

The teams monitor the new coral reefs to see if the oyster population strengthening plan is working.

The challenges remain, and Thomas will continue to monitor the coral reefs during the next year, but if everything goes, the prosperous new coral reefs will appear.

Russell says that the airport project was exciting because it was “evidence that we could do this actually on a large scale,” noting that there were at least 750 km of coast along the pearl river Delta in southern China that contains oyster reefs.

Oyster coral reefs there: Researcher

Moreover, the idea that coral reefs can be found in Hong Kong needs to be cultivated in people’s minds, according to Daniel Pauli, the main investigator in The sea around us A project at the University of Colombia.

“People should realize that the default setting of a coastal line like Hong Kong is to have the oyster boiler, so rebuilding coral reefs does not offer anything new, but rebuilding something that was before. This belongs to there,” he said..

Hong Kong is updating the strategy and work plan in biological diversity, which will determine the priorities of the next decade.

Thomas defends the government to do more to protect coastal marine ecosystems in the city, and to expand its marine reserve areas to include hot points of weak biological diversity.

“Hong Kong may be a very urban area, but it is a very biological diversity. It is only 0.03 percent of Chinese water, however, 25 percent of all registered marine species (in China) is present in Hong Kong,” she said.

About five percent of water has been appointed as marine parks or marine reserves, which are protected areas under the city law, which is run by the Agriculture and Fisheries and Protection Department. She wants to raise this to at least 10 percent, which is still less than the global goal of 30 percent.