If you find yourself needing proof these days that the efforts of a few can create true, positive change in the world, look no further than South Fork Sea Farmers.
The mission over the last eight years is at once simple and complicated: Heal the maritime environment through efforts to restore and rebuild shellfish reefs and bring balance back to the ecosystem of our local waters. It’s a focused goal but one that takes a lot of hands (and boats) to enact.
Since we last reported on this not-for-profit two years ago, the momentum has continued to build, with new partners and collaborators helping to grow their (eel)grass-roots.
In addition to the dozens and dozens of families who have volunteered to grow oysters (which act as natural filters for our waters), SFSF now has 21 local restaurants and purveyors — including Feniks, Clamman Seafood Market, El Verano, Almond, Bell & Anchor, Bostwick’s, Il Buco al Mare and many more — partnering with the organization to collect their discarded shells for use in reef restoration. To ferry them from donator to the water are about a dozen volunteers, as well as shellfish outfits like Shellworks, West Robins Oyster Co. and Conscience Point Shellfish Co. helping to recycle the bivalves and collaboration with the Billion Oyster Project and Mickey’s Carting out of Montauk.
“This work is about much more than recycling shell,” said Jeff Ragovin, president of South Fork Sea Farmers in a statement to the press. “It’s about restoring ecosystems, investing in our community, and showing what’s possible when local businesses, volunteers and environmental partners work together.”
Ragovin started SFSF several years ago after an invitation to tour the East Hampton Shellfish Hatchery by John “Barley” Dunne, which started in 1989 as a shellfish seeding program created to quell the die-off of local bay scallops and other shellfish.
The collective efforts are paying off. In just over the past short five months of the shoulder season alone, SFSF collected over 200 buckets of shells — almost a third of what’s needed to reconstruct a single reef. Since the group began partnering with EHSH, they’ve constructed and installed four 16-cubic-yard shellfish reefs — that’s over 154,000 pounds of collected shells.
They’ve also to date done a stand-up job of encouraging the next gen of maritime ecosystem champions. Since launching their scholarship program two years ago, SFSF has awarded $80,000 in college scholarships to eight local students as well as supporting the grant for a summer restoration program.
To learn more about SFSF, click here.
