Scotland’s native oysters could offer an investment opportunity that benefits nature, communities, and investors.
Marine restoration projects around Scotland working to reverse a steep decline in numbers of native oysters in Scottish waters are the focus of a consortium with plans to develop a pathway toward greater financial investment in the marine environment.
The group, consisting of Kaly Group, SAMS (Scottish Association for Marine Science) and the James Hutton Institute is investigating how to establish a market in marine natural capital in Scotland in a way that includes and supports local communities.
To project has been awarded £100,000 from the Scottish Government and NatureScot, in partnership with The National Lottery Heritage Fund, under the new Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS) grant scheme.
The goal is to create a road map for a new marine natural capital code that will help bring investment to projects like restoring native oyster reefs. These are biodiversity hotspots that generate natural capital and crucial ecosystem services in the marine environment.
These include providing habitats for commercially important fish, the removal of excess nitrogen from the water and improved water clarity.
The consortium chose native oysters as the species was once abundant around the UK coastline, supporting fisheries critical to national food security. They enrich the cultural and natural capital of coastal regions, but have become scarce, with Loch Ryan, in Galloway, being the sole remaining native oyster fishery along the west coast of Scotland.
Taco van Heusden, Co-Founder of Kaly Group, which was founded in 2022, said: “The marine environment is under threat from overfishing and pollution. By working towards a marine natural capital market, the restoration of our marine environment can become a viable economic activity.
“This will not only help grow the Scottish economy and meaningfully address both the climate and biodiversity crises, but it could also provide an additional form of income for local communities and other users of the marine environment.”
Dr. Adam Hughes, Senior Lecturer in sustainable aquaculture at SAMS, said: “There are lots of restoration projects around the UK and the benefits of such efforts go beyond the species they are trying to protect. In the case of native oysters, they improve the biodiversity around them, take up excess nutrients in the water and may even lock up excess carbon. We want to create a financial market to develop an income stream for these restoration projects, based on the natural capital and ecosystem services they provide.”
The new consortium unites leading organizations in the field of marine natural capital to urgently address and resolve issues the challenges around creating a market in this area. This includes challenges related to measurement, reporting, and verification, establishing high-integrity nature markets, legal frameworks for beneficial “ownership” of ecosystem services, ensuring robust scientific foundations and prioritizing community benefits at the core of marine natural capital initiatives. These efforts will place marine natural capital on equal footing with land-based natural capital and attract much-needed private investment.
The £100,000 development funding will help the consortium create an engagement and action plan, ahead of applying for a larger grant in the next FIRNS call for a pilot project.
Dr. Hughes added: “There is a lot of investor interest in natural capital and there are already similar markets established in the terrestrial environment. An example would be investments in peatland conservation because of the effectiveness of these habitats in locking away carbon. The marine environment is a long way behind terrestrial markets, so we have brought together communities, financial institutions, policy makers and researchers to understand what needs to be done to create similar markets to incentivize marine conservation, restoration, and enhancement.”
