The Native Oyster Restoration Alliance (NORA) and the Berlin Oyster Recommendation: bringing back a key ecosystem engineer by developing and supporting best practice in Europe

Efforts to restore the native oyster Ostrea edulis and its associated habitats are gaining momentum across Europe. Several projects are currently running or being planned. To maximize the success of these, it is crucial to draw on existing knowledge and experience in order to design, plan and implement restoration activities in a sustainable and constructive approach. For the development of best practice recommendations and to promote multidimensional knowledge and technology exchange, the Native Oyster Restoration Alliance (NORA) was formed by partners from science, technology, nature conservation, consultancies, commercial producers and policy-makers. The NORA network will enhance scientific and practical progress in flat oyster restoration, such as in project planning and permitting, seed oyster production, disease management and monitoring. It also focuses on joint funding opportunities and the potential development of national and international regulatory frameworks. The main motivation behind NORA is to facilitate the restoration of native oyster habitat within its historic biogeographic range in the North Sea and other European seas along with the associated ecosystem services; services such as enhancing biodiversity, including enhanced fish stocks, nutrient cycling and sediment stabilization. NORA members agreed on a set of joint recommendations and strongly advise that any restoration measure should respect and apply these recommendations: The Berlin Oyster Recommendation is presented here. It will help guide the development of the field by developing and applying best practice accordingly. NORA also aims to combine the outreach activities of local projects for improved community support and awareness and to provide educational material to increase knowledge of the key ecological role of this species and increase awareness among regulators, permit providers and stakeholders. A synthesis of O. edulis restoration efforts in Europe is provided and underlines the general significance in the field

NORA moving forward: Developing an oyster restoration network in Europe to support the Berlin Oyster Recommendation

1. The Native Oyster Restoration Alliance (NORA) supports the protection and ecological restoration of the native European oyster, Ostrea edulis, and its habitat across its current and historical biogeographical range. NORA works to overcome barriers to the conservation, restoration, and recovery of the European oyster by providing a platform for the NORA community to collaborate and participate in knowledge exchange. NORA seeks to support responsible restoration practice, in compliance with biosecurity and sustainability. 2. Against this background, the NORA community formulated a series of specific recommendations, the Berlin Oyster Recommendation, to support native oyster restoration by developing and applying best practice with the aim to recover healthy and resilient marine ecosystems. In combination with the Standards for Ecological Restoration (SER) and the Restoration Guidelines for Shellfish Reefs, the Berlin Oyster Recommendation is a relevant tool for successful and sustainable oyster restoration in Europe. 3. The establishment of NORA working groups will support the implementation and further development of the six corresponding recommendations. Current NORA working groups cover site selection, biosecurity, production, and monitoring. The site selection working group will address the identification of suitable sites for oyster restoration to support policy relevant decision making and the conservation, reinforcement, or reintroduction of native oysters. The biosecurity working group will develop biosecurity guidelines for native oyster restoration in Europe. The production working group will assess the potential of standards for seed oyster production and supply in order to enhance production appropriate for restoration purposes. In close collaboration with the Native Oyster Network – UK & Ireland (NON), the monitoring working group will produce a monitoring guidelines handbook to provide metrics and methods that will be suitable across the range of O. edulis projects in Europe for the documentation of restoration success and ecosystem recovery. 4. The Berlin Oyster Recommendation was examined and interpreted by NORA experts in the context of the further development of joint guidelines for the practice of successful and sustainable native oyster restoration

Wiederansiedlung und ökologische Bedeutung der Europäischen Auster in der deutschen Nordsee

Oyster reefs are among the most species-rich but at the same time among the most endangered marine habitats in the world. Once, huge areas of three-dimensional biogenic structures formed by the native European oyster (Ostrea edulis) provided a hard substrate on the seabed of the German North Sea, thus providing valuable ecosystem services and habitat for numerous species. Today, O. edulis and its biocoenoses are classified as functionally extinct in the German Bight. The successful and long-term reintroduction of this important ecological key species is currently being investigated and promoted by two projects of the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation. The return of the European oyster to its former habitat, for which the exclusion of any bottom-contacting human interference is a general prerequisite, could lead to a significant increase in biodiversity. The initial results of the two projects provide an important basis for developing and implementing a large-scale German restoration programme to reinstall a healthy population of the native oyster and its valuable ecosystem services

The Native Oyster Restoration Alliance (NORA) and the Berlin Oyster Recommendation: bringing back a key ecosystem engineer by developing and supporting best practice in Europe

Efforts to restore the native oyster Ostrea edulis and its associated habitats are gaining momentum across Europe. Several projects are currently running or being planned. To maximize the success of these, it is crucial to draw on existing knowledge and experience in order to design, plan and implementrestoration activities in a sustainable and constructive approach. For the development of best practice recommendations and to promote multidimensional knowledge and technology exchange, the Native OysterRestoration Alliance (NORA) was formed by partners from science, technology, nature conservation, consultancies, commercial producers and policy-makers. The NORA network will enhance scientific and practical progress in flat oyster restoration, such as in project planning and permitting, seed oyster production, disease management and monitoring. It also focuses on joint funding opportunities and the potential development of national and international regulatory frameworks. The main motivation behind NORA is to facilitate the restoration of native oyster habitat within its historic biogeographic range in theNorth Sea and other European seas along with the associated ecosystem services; services such as enhancing biodiversity, including enhanced fish stocks, nutrient cycling and sediment stabilization. NORA members agreed on a set of joint recommendations and strongly advise that any restoration measure should respect and apply these recommendations: The Berlin Oyster Recommendation is presented here. It will help guide the development of the field by developing and applying best practice accordingly. NORA also aims tocombine the outreach activities of local projects for improved community support and awareness and to provide educational material to increase knowledge of the key ecological role of this species and increase awareness among regulators, permit providers and stakeholders. A synthesis of O. edulis restoration efforts in Europe is provided and underlines the general significance in the field

Progress report on the scientific data compilation and analyses in support of the development of a CCAMLR MPA in the Weddell Sea (Antarctica)

At the CCAMLR meeting in 2012, the Commission welcomed the offer of Germany to take the lead in developing a Weddell Sea MPA for consideration in 2014. Subsequently, the German Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection tasked the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research to compile and analyse scientific data for identifying areas which require particular protection in the Weddell Sea. Work under this project started mid-April 2013. This progress report is based on WG-EMM-13/22 which was submitted to WG-EMM 2013 in Bremerhaven, Germany. Germany intends to update the Scientific Committee on the actual state of our project, particularly on the main proceeds of a national data workshop held in Bremerhaven early September 2013. The main objectives of this document are (i) to propose the planning area of our evaluation study, (ii) to provide an update on the data situation, (iii) to draw attention to the forthcoming (early April 2014) international expert workshop on the planning of a Weddell Sea MPA