Photo: https://www.afoodieworld.com/foods-future-summit/oysters-sos-bringing-the-nyc-billion-oyster-project-to-hong-kong

The ocean is where all life comes from - including us humans. The ocean provides us with most of the oxygen we breathe and regulates the climate. The quality of the water is maintained by an immense number of microorganisms, and some larger animals, such as filtering animals including oysters. A single oyster can filter up to 98 liters (5 gallons) per day!

Oysters are amazing animals that help to

But oysters are severely threatened by global warming, acidification, chemical pollution and over exploitation - so they are rapidly declining. Hong Kong oysters have been consumed by humans in the region for over a thousand years, and farmed for over 700 years!

Oysters even gave the name to the whole “Pearl River Delta” region that has recently become one of the world’s most productive high-tech industrial hubs - recently renamed the "Greater Bay". But precisely because of urbanization, pollution and over exploitation, oysters that used to be all over the coast, are now only concentrated in Deep Bay, nested between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. In 2014, on the basis of pollution reports, Shenzhen’s authorities closed down all oyster farming in the mainland waters and many oyster farmers moved their oysters farming operations to the Hong Kong waters.

The consumption of local Hong Kong oysters has been declining as Hong Kongers prefer imported oysters, oyster farmers are ageing, and COVID19 closed borders created a manpower shortage for harvesting oysters which is a labour intensive work. The oyster farming industry is in crisis.

We need oysters to keep the sea clean, biodiverse, sequester carbon, protect the coast and also provide jobs, food and income for the families that have been in this way of life for over 700 years.

For that we need to develop a way to:

  1. Grow oyster better (marine biology and automation): “Oyster Hatchery” (pt 1)
  2. Build oyster rafts that are more robust and require less maintenance (naval architecture): “Ocean Farm” (pt 2)
  3. Provide oyster farmers with other income streams (IOT, and renewable energy production: solar, wind, hydrogen) “Smart Floating Laboratory” (pt 3)

For this course, in 2021, we focused on the "oyster hatchery" aspect (Marine Biology). In the previous course, in 2020, we focused on the "ocean farm" aspect (Naval Architecture). For the next course, the goal will be to integrate the oyster hatchery on the ocean farm, building the "Smart Floating Laboratory", integrating all the aspects of previous work, providing a highly innovative solution to grow native oyster larvae on site.

Oyster Hatchery (pt 1)