Bedding in Can tiny larvae bring oysters back to Humber?

A box marked "special delivery" arrived about midday at Spurn Discovery Centre, on a remote East Yorkshire peninsula in the Humber estuary.

- Robyn Vinter

It is unlikely the postal worker had any idea it contained 300,000 living oyster larvae - tiny pinpricksized organisms destined to become part of a new oyster reef just off the English coast.

Half a million native European flat oysters will be introduced to the estuary after being carefully nurtured by Wilder Humber, a partnership between Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust and the green energy company Ørsted.

The restoration project is the first of its kind in the UK and a key component in a desperate battle to restore coastal waters to how they were before becoming blighted by overfishing and pollution.

Globally, at least 85% of oyster habitat has been lost. Closer to home it is even worse. A map made in 1883 showed oyster beds skirting Britain and Ireland, with a thick belt in the Channel, but now in Europe only an estimated 1% of native flat oysters remain.