A pearl of a project

The Rotary Club of Redcliffe Sunrise, Qld, is involved in an innovative project to help restore Moreton Bay and reduce landfill.

Following the Rotary International announcement that the environment would officially be recognised as its seventh area of focus, the Rotary Club of Redcliffe Sunrise established the Environmental Sustainability Rotary Action Group (ESRAG) Moreton Bay Chapter.

The marine environment is of great importance to the club, in that the Redcliffe Peninsula protrudes into Moreton Bay Marine Park. Robbie Porter, from the Central Moreton Bay OzFish chapter, visited the club to present what OzFish is doing to increase fish habitat by collecting used oyster shells for reef restoration.

This involves collecting oyster shells from local shucking houses. The process eliminates shells going to landfill and, as oysters are filter feeders and filter 180 litres of water a day, they clean up the nitrogen and phosphorus from upstream catchments.

The ESRAG Moreton Bay team, championed by Vice-president Colin Scobie, decided to get behind the OzFish initiative. A brochure was developed in partnership with Health Land and Water, Southeast Queensland universities, OzFish and others to assist in the promotion.

“Oysters were removed in early colonial days for a source of protein and as a source of lime for cement in construction of early Brisbane buildings. This destroyed the oyster reefs as a means of preventing coastal erosion, but it also made the possibility of oyster recruitment at the time impossible.”

Contact was made with the local seafood wholesaler to collect the lids of the shucked oyster shells, and they were very pleased that the shells wouldn’t be going into their skips and eventually landfill.

Next, the club contacted the council to arrange to have the shells stored at the local waste transfer station until there were enough to take a trailer load out at a time. A community grant from the local water utility purchased wheelie bins to store them in. Now there is a tonne or more of oyster shells per month going to the OzFish work site at the Port of Brisbane.

Working bees are coordinated twice a month by OzFish to participate in placing the sterilised shells into Robust Oyster Baskets (ROBs). The working bees are advertised in the District 9620 weekly GIST newsletter, which allows for a large number of Rotarians from a variety of clubs to turn up to help.

Following each working bee, 200 ROBs are ready to deploy into the Port of Brisbane site for ecological research. They are dropped into a GPS-located subtidal zone over the summer spawning period, during which water quality checks are carried out, and the number of wild oyster spat that have recruited into the shells is closely monitored.

The marine knowledge gained from working alongside the universities and other supporting organisations is nothing short of amazing.

Oysters were removed in early colonial days for a source of protein and as a source of lime for cement in construction of early Brisbane buildings. This destroyed the oyster reefs as a means of preventing coastal erosion, but it also made the possibility of oyster recruitment at the time impossible. In addition, the early days of land clearing, including mangroves, washed large volumes of sediment, mud and freshwater into the Moreton Bay National Park, depleting oxygen sources for oysters and other marine creatures.

The Rotary Club of Redcliffe Sunrise and the ESRAG Moreton Bay Chapter is working hard with OzFish to make a change. The club now has the local seafood restaurants on board the ‘Following the Shell’ initiative in saving the bay, with volunteers collecting shells on an almost daily basis.

From here, they hope to expand the research to various locations around the Redcliffe Peninsula and build more knowledge for ecological research.