Wilder Humber
Pioneering marine restoration in the Humber Estuary
Iconic Humber
Wilder Humber project sites straddle the mighty Humber estuary
The river Humber drains rainfall from one-fifth of England's land area. Its iconic estuary is one of the most significant natural features in the UK and its habitats are of international importance, providing breeding and feeding grounds for an abundance of marine life, including grey seals, lamprey and over-wintering, migratory birds.
Not only a conservation site, the Humber is also one of the busiest and fastest-growing trading areas in Europe and a major contributor to the UK's economy. It hosts the country's largest port complex, with an average of 40,000 ship movements per year - almost one quarter of the UK's seaborne trade.
Amazing Oysters
European flat oysters are native to UK seas where they live in shallow coastal waters and estuaries.
Oysters are nature’s water purifiers with each adult filtering 200 litres - that’s more than a bathtub - every day.
Populations of oysters physically fuse together to form vast biogenic reefs which stabilise the seabed, provide a fantastic habitat and absorb wave energy which helps protect coastlines from erosion.
Super Seagrass
Seagrass meadows are a haven for nature, providing a nursery ground for juvenile fish and a feeding ground for wading birds - as well as absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere faster than rainforests and safely storing it beneath the estuary mudflats, helping in the fight against climate change.
Hospitable Habitats
Saltmarshes are the most complex and dynamic of all UK habitats, constantly shifting and being re-designed by the combined natural processes of the land and sea. Made up of tidal mudflats, full of invertebrates which provide an all-you-can-eat buffet for birds, tidal pools and creeks which are nursery grounds for fish and flowering salt meadows, which provide a vital source of food and shelter for pollinators, birds and mammals.
Named after its favourite food, the sea aster mining bee is a salt marsh resident
Dunes are formed from sand blown inland from the beach by onshore winds, and trapped by debris or plants. Accumulating sand makes a good habitat for tough beach grasses such as couch and lyme grass, whose strong horizontal roots stabilise the collected sand, encouraging more to settle.
Sand dunes are a sanctuary for rare species which are perfectly adapted to live in sand. At a healthy dune, you could find orchids, toads, birds and lizards thriving.
Nature Emergency
Habitats are vanishing at alarming rates and species are in rapid decline. The vast seagrass meadows at Spurn Point have all but disappeared, covering less than 2% of their historic area - while the oyster reef that stretched across the entire mouth of the estuary and was once so expansive it posed a hazard to shipping, today is functionally extinct.
The loss of these natural coastal defences leaves shores exposed and vulnerable to erosion. With terrestrial developments encroaching upon the landward edge of the shore, fringe habitats like sand dunes and saltmarsh are squeezed into ever-shrinking pockets - leaving nature with nowhere to call home.
Urgent action is needed to turn the tide of destruction and displacement. Wilder Humber’s ambitious programme seeks to restore marine habitats and species throughout the Humber estuary. Delivered through a pioneering conservation partnership between Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, and international green energy leader Ørsted it will trial a seascape scale model, combining sand dune, saltmarsh, seagrass, and native oyster restoration to maximise conservation and biodiversity benefits.
The dark areas seen on Olsen's Piscatoral Atlas published in 1883 show a vast population of European oysters stretching from the mouth of the Humber between Hull and Grimsby, south along the Lincolnshire coast to Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex as far as the Thames estuary.
These huge oyster populations have all but vanished and the remaining fragments are too isolated and depleted to naturally recover.
In a little over a century the seagrass meadow at Spurn Point has reduced in area by over 98% - from covering 480 hectares in 1900 to only seven hectares today.
Contaminated water has driven this extraordinary loss, with heavy metal pollution coming from nearby industries physically stunting plant growth and runoff from agriculture clouding the estuary water, which blocks sunlight from reaching the submerged seagrass.
Map courtesy Ordnance Survey
In the UK, 85% of our saltmarsh habitat has been lost since the 1800’s. This large-scale habitat degradation has led to a loss of connectivity between coastal habitats, further exacerbating their decline.
Along the Humber estuary, saltmarsh enrichment is vital to ensure decline is not in their future. Current threats to saltmarsh are changes to natural hydrology, pollution, coastal development, fill/improper marsh elevations, and non-native/invasive species.
Ecosystem Restoration
Wilder Humber brings together sand dune, saltmarsh, seagrass and native oyster restoration to improve the estuary landscape, revitalising healthy ecosystems in the largest seascape project in the North Sea.
Wilder Humber aims to restore and enrich nearly 40 hectares of estuarine habitats, including:
- Reintroducing 500,000 native oysters into the Humber;
- Restoring 30 hectares of seagrass meadow at Spurn Point;
- Enriching 2 hectares of saltmarsh;
- Reconnecting sand dunes and improving ecosystem succession.
A keystone species is an organism that helps define an entire ecosystem.
The Humber estuary's seagrass and oysters are keystone species - ecological engineers which shape the landscape, sequester carbon and fuel biodiversity by providing a vital habitat and spawning ground for fish and other marine species.
Without its keystone species, the ecosystem would be dramatically different or cease to exist altogether.
Sowing Seeds of Hope
Wilder Humber is replanting over 30 hectares of lost seagrass meadow at Spurn Point, and it all begins with collecting over 40,000 seagrass seeds every year.
Watch the video to discover more.
The team sustainably collects seeds from areas of healthy seagrass, growing them in their seagrass nursery and replanting them in seed bags in carefully selected areas. Our restoration efforts are enhanced by the valuable contribution of volunteers like you .
Seagrass Success
Building on the success of recent planting trials, Wilder Humber is quadrupling the area of seagrass meadow at Spurn Point.
Seagrass Zostera Noltii is also known as dwarf eelgrass
Map courtesy Ordnance Survey.
Oyster Reintroduction
Wilder Humber aims to reintroduce 500,000 native oysters to the estuary. These oysters will create the building blocks from which a biogenic reef can develop over time, which will have huge benefits for local wildlife and our coastline.
A juvenile flat oyster Ostrea Edulis
Before relaying into the Humber, juvenile oysters are brought to the nursery from a hatchery, where they have been reared. The juvenile oysters are held on trestle boxes in the estuary, to allow them to acclimatise and grow to an optimal size for release.
Boxes of oysters are secured to trestles at Spurn Point's aquaculture site
Ecosystem Engineers
Seagrass and oysters act as ecosystem engineers with potential as a nature-based solution for protecting coastlines. By reducing wave action and thus turbidity, trapping suspended sediment, and providing nutrient cycling, seagrass meadows and oyster reefs create the conditions for saltmarsh and sand dunes to form and expand.
Nature's Sea Defences
Wetland ecosystems such as saltmarshes, sand dunes, oyster reefs and seagrass meadows serve as buffers during storms and extreme events while also providing important coastal habitats for a variety of different plant and animal species. They dampen the force of waves, protect coastline from erosion, and absorb flood waters, decreasing property damage in adjacent communities.
Climate Allies
Coastal habitats are unsung heroes in our fight against climate change. Blue carbon refers to carbon captured (sequestered) and stored in coastal marine environments, normally by seaweed, saltmarsh, algae and other marine habitats.
Healthy habitats can mitigate climate change and help adapt to its effects. Restoring vital coastal ecosystems is one of the best nature-based solutions we can harness in the fight against climate change. An estimated 11 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent is captured each year in UK marine ecosystems.
Restoring degraded coastal habitats to capture blue carbon, such as seagrass, oyster reefs,, and saltmarsh are particularly effective solutions as these habitats are comparatively easy to restore and capture substantial carbon quickly, and can continue to do so for thousands of years. It is estimated that saltmarsh and seagrass habitats alone fix and store carbon at 2-4 times the rate of mature tropical forests.
Improving Water Quality
Oysters, seagrass and saltmarsh plant species improve water quality by removing excess nutrients, chemical contaminants and biotoxins from the water and storing them in their tissues. Seagrass and saltmarsh plants absorb them through their leaves and roots, whereas oysters are filter feeders, helping to keep the water clean by removing algae, organic matter, and excess nutrients from the water column as they grow.
Community Involvement
Wilder Humber is working with local communities to tell the restoration story and provide opportunities to contribute to wildlife conservation in the Humber estuary.
Wilder Humber Volunteering
Could you help us deliver our restoration projects on the iconic Humber, restoring native oysters and rebuilding our lost seagrass meadow at Spurn Point? If you have a passion for the natural world and would love to be involved in marine conservation, please visit our volunteering page .
