NORA says restoration projects across Europe have reported difficulty in sourcing European flat oysters (Ostrea edulis).
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The Native Oyster Restoration Alliance (NORA) has launched a public consultation on a strategic roadmap intended to increase hatchery production of the European flat oyster (Ostrea edulis), in order to support restoration projects across Europe.
NORA said restoration initiatives have repeatedly reported difficulty sourcing O. edulis, and that it has gathered information from restoration projects and native oyster producers through questionnaires and workshops to better quantify supply constraints and future demand.
In the roadmap’s “Vision 2030”, NORA sets out an ambition for hatchery production to be sufficient to meet “tailored demands” from oyster restoration organisations, alongside clearer and more consistent rules for oyster movements and a stronger skills base within European hatcheries.
The roadmap, which was developed during a two-day workshop in October 2025 with hatchery managers and experts from Europe, Australia and the United States, lists six headline recommendations and the actions needed to achieve them.
Among these are increasing market confidence in demand, in part through raising awareness of the need for large-scale oyster restoration and the resultant benefits, securing investment for market growth from government and other sources, and developing a project-level decision support tool for suitable seed production.
The roadmap also calls for addressing critical knowledge gaps in disease monitoring and the genetics of disease resistance, the development of accessible guidance on movement of oysters for restoration purposes, and building skills and capacity in hatcheries.
A one-page action plan in the consultation document highlights proposed steps up until 2030, including mapping disease status and hatchery skill gaps. Other proposed actions include developing non-destructive testing methods acceptable to regulators for bivalve movements, and expanding training programmes in restorative and low-trophic aquaculture.
Comments on the roadmap are open until 5 January 2026, with feedback invited by email to coordinator Philine zu Ermgassen via the NORA website.
“We want to make sure this roadmap is as useful as it can be to overcome current barriers to scaling up oyster reef restoration in Europe,” Ermgassen said, in a LinkedIn post sharing the consultation.
The project is funded by the Endangered Landscapes & Seascapes Programme, managed by the Cambridge Conservation Initiative in partnership with Arcadia, and led by the Zoological Society of London, the University of Portsmouth, the University of Edinburgh and Blue Marine Foundation.