Bivalve gardening

Abstract

From an increasing awareness of sustainable food production, the promise of the "blue revolution" and campaigns to ameliorate the marine environment, seafood gardening has emerged from motivated local citizenry as a local food production phenomenon. Bivalve gardening, primarily manifested as oyster gardening, is a relatively new concept, slowly gaining traction worldwide. Terrestrial and marine gardening share the same principles of cultivating organisms and providing ecosystem goods and services. The main differences concern the growing medium - and legislation regarding use and access to gardens. Bivalves appear to be an ideal group of marine organisms for local production, they are low maintenance and do not require external food supplies as they feed directly by filtrating their surrounding growing medium. However, the cultural services provided by bivalve gardening range from social organisation to sustainable engagement; and require certain pillars such as clear objectives, support from the local community and government, dedicated volunteers, native bivalve seed availability, training, and realistic objectives. Moreover, the development of new gardens raises fundamental issues including food safety, regulation, and marine spatial planning. We use two case studies to illustrate different approaches to bivalve gardening: (1) in the U.S. several bivalve gardening initiatives are taking place, it is often referred as oyster gardening and initiated as a bivalve habitat recovery efforts, (2) in Denmark in Europe, several projects have started directly as bivalve gardens for food provisioning and are managed by local associations.