10 Years In, Scotch & Oysters Still An Excellent Highland Pair

On the banks of a North Sea estuary in the Highlands of Scotland, a 181-year-old Whisky Distillery is marking a ten-year environmental achievement: the introduction of 112,000 Native European Flat oysters into the Dornoch Firth. Led and financed by the Glenmorangie Company, it is the product of a three-pronged collaboration of business, scientists, and conservationists known as DEEP, "The Dornoch Environmental Enhancement Project."

Scientifically coordinated by marine biologists at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and boosted by the Marine Conservation Society of the United Kingdom, the project was imagined more than ten years ago and designed to lift biodiversity and water quality in the North Sea estuary through the heroic oxygenating and filtering of the humble oyster.

Birth Of An Idea

In many ways, it is a triumph of what in today's parlance would be the buzzy concept of "manifestation" - that the alchemy of creativity, determination and unremitting focused work can deliver seemingly unattainable goals. When the "DEEP" conversation began more than a decade ago, that alchemy, combined with conservation mandates from the UK and the European Union, was all that existed of the project.

Drawing from exploration of expired reefs in the region, divers and marine biologists agreed that the Native European Flat oyster thrived in these waters for thousands of years, as it did all over Europe. But in the nineteenth century, overfishing, storm surges and disease essentially crushed the species, taking away not only a food source but a powerful natural water purifier.

And so it was that a strategy was born, and all that was left to do was execute it.

The team throughout has included Glenmorangie's Director of Corporate Social Responsibility Hamish Torrie, DEEP's lead scientist, Heriot-Watt University Professor Bill Sanderson, and Calum Duncan, head of Policy and Advocacy at the Marine Conservation Society.

Keeping in mind that in 2014 the starting point was zero oysters, the DEEP team has shared both the stress and the elation of formulating an environmentally responsible plan, identifying supply chains, promoting the program literally around the world, securing permissions of all kinds from governmental and environmental agencies, and costing out the eventual millions that have so far been spent on DEEP.

"This is forever stuff and it takes a long time," says Torrie. "This is long-term restoration. Once you've committed this length of time you've got to complete it. Nothing is forever in terms of funding. We're very confident we can continue but, long-term, we need other partners to come in and join us."

The Dornoch Dancer

Surrounded by water as Scotland is, and given the nature of the DEEP project, a significant expense over several years was the constant costly demand to book boats. Glenmorangie recently purchased a tough little fish-farm-style boat christened "Dornoch Dancer," capable of carrying up to eight passengers. It's also meant to transport oysters and repurposed shells for bedding or "substrate" to about a dozen different evolving reefs in the Firth. It's not a heavy duty construction-level craft, but it is sturdy and was built for purpose by local Highland boat company, Leco Marine.

Sanderson's team is still mapping the bed of the Dornoch Firth, painstakingly scrubbing and screening every new oyster to prevent contamination from other aquatic environments experienced by the oysters in their breeding.

"One of the things Hamish said to me at the beginning was that nobody wanted a flash-in-the-pan project. it needed to be carefully done and with the evidence peer reviewed and published at each stage," says Sanderson. "So, we've not rushed it and we spent time establishing the environmental history, looked at the present survival rates, and experimented with optimising the process of restoration way before we started to push at the numbers." He's optimistic that a foundation has been set for more rapid reef expansion but the question has been since the start, where does a project like DEEP find four million oysters? "In terms of challenges," says Sanderson, "getting enough oysters is still tricky at times."

Leading the charge for policy and conservation advocacy, Duncan of the Marine Conservation Society is emphatic about the whisky company's vision for DEEP and the broad responsibility of businesses everywhere. "To meet climate targets," says Duncan, "transformational change is needed. The flip side of that is transformation can be challenging and that speaks to the importance of having a plan of how to take industry and sectors of the economy on a journey to help them transition to a more nature- and climate-friendly way of working. I think that is the big political challenge. Examples like this are really important because it shows what can be done."

Next Stop: 200,000 Oysters

"When we started ten years ago, there were two or three other oyster projects underway. And now in Europe there's something like 50. We've led the way," says Torrie. "From the start, we made a public commitment that we'll do the first 200,000 oysters. And then for the project to really expand we would need to bring in other partners. Collaboration in the environmental space is absolutely vital. We all want to see the same result – an enhanced environment."

The Early Results Are In

About six years ago, looking out over the churning Dornoch from the Firth's bank next to the Glenmorangie Distillery, Sanderson reflected "I love this place. It's quite fascinating. And I imagine that I'll go out in a boat, some day in the future, and I'll be able to look down and be able to see the bottom, because the water quality will be that much better because of all of the oysters in the system." He's still working toward that change. But transformation is underway. "The biodiversity effect is noticeable where the oysters are," says Sanderson. "There are more turfs of animals and algae and crabs et cetera. Our research suggests that we can expect a doubling of the diversity in these areas in the next ten years and that will be very evident amongst the oysters."