Jan De Nul: 2000 stones returned to Belgian North Sea

Last week, Jan De Nul took an important step in the restoration of oyster reefs in the Belgian North Sea – on the seabed of a protected marine area, they placed 2,000 stones, inoculated with a total of 400,000 young, hatchery-grown oysters.

“With this intervention, we are directly contributing to the recovery of an ecosystem that once played a key role in the North Sea,” the company said.

“For this project, we designed and built our own oyster reef restoration unit: a modular container-based installation that functions as a mobile and globally deployable oyster hatchery facility. In this system, we grew 400,000 oyster larvae in just a few weeks, ready for deployment at sea.”

According to Jan De Nul, the system is fully operational on site and can be used worldwide for similar restoration projects.

Also, they placed the stones on the carefully selected Dageraad wreck site, a marine area in the North Sea with historical gravel beds and hydrodynamic conditions that limit sediment burial. The site also provides natural protection against beam trawling, which increases the chances of successful and long-term reef restoration.