Page 186 - South Mississippi Living - May, 2023

FINAL SAY
TOM
Director of Marine Programs, The Nature Conservancy
MOHRMAN It’s amazing how such a little thing fishing community and local
as an oyster can have such a dramatic impact on both the environment and
the economy of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. A thriving oyster community is
key to the environmental habitat beds needed to grow, while the resulting crops provide a vital source of income to oyster farmers and restaurants specializing in the delicacy.
A combination of natural and man- made disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, the Bonnet Carre’ release,
and the BP oil spill, dealt a near-fatal blow to a thriving industry. Reviving the oyster business in Mississippi has been
a long and arduous process; however, there is new tool available with the implementation of a program from The Nature Conservancy in Mississippi: Save Our Shells.
With the first part of the Save our Shells project completed, which required an analysis of an oyster shell recycling program’s economic and operational sustainability to determine how an oyster recycling program can be implemented in Mississippi, Phase Two has been launched. This phase of the project is the implementation of shell collection.
It is estimated that the Save Our Shells program could collect hundreds of thousands of recycled oyster shells in the first two years that could be put back into the Mississippi Sound.
Recycling used oyster shells is an effective use of natural material that can be placed in the water for oyster larvae to grow on and produce new oysters. This process supports both the local
restaurants. And a major part of the project is so simple, instead of disposing the empty oysters shells left by hungry patrons in their restaurants as waste, those restaurants are giving those shells to Save Our Shells to be prepared to help build new oyster beds and create new oysters. It’s a very simple cyclical premise: waste not, want not.
The key to Save Our Shells’ success is the participation of local restaurants. Restaurants such as The White Pillars restaurant, the Beau Rivage, Keg, and Barrell in Ocean Springs, along with the Mississippi Coast Shrimp Basket locations are on board to recycle oysters in support of this program.
It is only fitting that the official launch of Phase Two of Save Our Shells was held on Saturday, March 25, at the 7th Annual Gulf Coast Oyster Cook-off Festival held at Point Cadet Plaza, Biloxi. Presentations were made to show the community how to give back to the environment while protecting a valuable natural resource.
Save Our Shells, in many ways, is a simple way for both Mississippi residents and Gulf Coast restaurants to support the state’s environment and economy. All residents have to do is patronize participating restaurants for a nice oyster dinner, then the restaurant turns the leftover shells to Save Our Shells to help
rebuild oyster beds in the Mississippi Sound, thus creating more oysters. It is indeed a delicious circle of life.
The Save Our Shells project is paid for with federal funding from the RESTORE council and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality under the Resource and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourist Opportunities, and Revise Economies of the Gulf Coast States Act of 2012 (RESTORE Act).
More information on the Save Our Shells project and how restaurant owners can participate can be found on The Nature Conservancy in Mississippi website or email saveourshells@tnc.org.
186 | May 2023
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