Representatives from the nonprofit Billion Oyster Project (BOP) visited the Salt Marsh Nature Center on Sunday, Dec. 8, to engage visitors with their goal of getting one million people to restore one billion oysters to the New York Harbor by 2035.
“This is a brief introduction to the Billion Oyster Project,” BOP Senior Stewardship Community Coordinator Zeke King Phillips said. “We’re also going to talk specifically about a project in Jamaica Bay, the waters nearby in Paerdegat Basin, and then I will briefly talk about the work that is going on at the Salt Marsh.”
The Salt Marsh Alliance, Inc. (SMA), formed in 2002 to support the Salt Marsh Nature Center, sponsored the event. The center, located at 3301 Avenue U, was established in 2000 and is the largest of New York City’s five nature centers. It is a part of Marine Park, the largest park in Brooklyn that covers an impressive 798 acres — 530 acres of which are a Forever Wild Reserve consisting of pristine grasslands and a salt marsh nestled along the western shoreline of the Jamaica Bay inlet.
“I wanted to make sure that everyone understood the connection between the goals of the Billion Oyster Project and the goals of what we’re trying to do here in the Salt Marsh and how they work together,” SMA Program Director Debra Sturm said. “Because you can’t have the environment you have here without clean water and someplace like the Salt Marsh to do all the great things that you talk about.”
Along with BOP Stewardship Community Coordinator Marcel De Bernardo, they gave a brief history of the…
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