Solutions Take Centre Stage at COP30, Marking a New Era of Accelerated Climate Action. Read it here.
Parts of this site were translated using AI. Accuracy may vary.
Solutions Take Centre Stage at COP30, Marking a New Era of Accelerated Climate Action. Read it here.
Parts of this site were translated using AI. Accuracy may vary.
Wednesday, 14 January 2026 | By Climate High-Level Champions & Edges of Earth
An interview with: Pete Malinowski, Executive Director of Billion Oyster Project
Country & Region: New York, United States
Breakthrough: Oyster Restoration & Resilient Cities
(Image: Meeting Pete Malinowski, CEO of Billion Oyster Project)
I grew up on Fishers Island, which is a small, remote stretch of land off the coast of Connecticut, home to about 200 year-round residents. My backyard was beaches, and a coastline full of birds, with forests to get lost in. I feel lucky to have had that kind of connection to nature from the start.
My parents started the Fishers Island Oyster Farm while raising [six children]. It was our duty to either work on the boats, around the docks, or in the water. I remember my dad coming home from work smelling like oysters. It was certainly a unique way to grow up; but, my parents chose this life intentionally. They wanted to raise a family in a place they cared about, doing work that was good for the planet.
(Image: New York City Harbor is an unexpected wild space)
We were taught that yes, oysters bring in money; but, more importantly, they restore the ecosystem. Unlike most agriculture, oyster farming doesn’t require feed, fertilizer, or freshwater. Oysters filter up to 50 gallons of water per day, removing nitrogen, sediment, and pollutants just by eating. Their reefs create habitat and protect shorelines from erosion. Done right, oyster farming actually improves the environment. This was always the point of my family’s work: “farm without harm”.
In school, I wasn’t a strong student. Meanwhile, I was spending hours in the hatchery, learning to feed oysters, manage tanks, and even identify phytoplankton under a microscope. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was getting a crash course in marine biology, and I was loving it. That hands-on experience shaped how I think about education.
(Image: The native Eastern oyster found up and down the east coast of the United States, from Maine to Florida)
When I moved to New York City and started looking for jobs, I was lucky enough to meet Murray Fisher who had just founded New York Harbor School. His vision was to use the harbour as a classroom and prepare students for maritime careers while also restoring the water itself. The school was already doing great work, but Murray was frustrated that students didn’t have a direct way to improve the harbour. That’s when he told me about the city’s forgotten oyster history.
Four hundred years ago, New York Harbor was unrecognisable. Salt marshes, forests, rolling hills, and an incredible amount of oysters were the picture of this place we now know as an urban jungle. Early European settlers wrote home saying they couldn’t see the sun because of the flocks [of birds] overhead. They claimed you could lower a basket into the water and pull it up full of fish, which made them think they’d never go hungry.
(Image: Pete giving a lesson on New York’s past)
At the center of that ecosystem were oyster reefs. Like coral or kelp forests, they created structures that stabilized the seafloor, calmed waves, filtered water, and offered food and shelter for marine life.
For thousands of years, the Lenape Indigenous Peoples lived here without destroying that balance. New York’s colonisation brought with it rapid extraction. As harvesting tools improved, oyster reefs vanished. By the late 1700s, the native Eastern oysters were as good as gone. For a time, people still farmed oysters using seed from the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays. But the wild reefs, and its billions of oysters, were categorically lost.
In the mid 1800s, New York built an aqueduct to bring clean water from upstate. That unlocked population growth, and with it, an explosion in sewage. New Yorkers used ten times more water per person than most other cities, and all of it went into the harbour. People began getting sick. But instead of blaming pollution, they blamed the oysters that were still being farmed in contaminated waters. [By 1921], the beds were shut down. By the 1960s, [the harbour] was toxic, trash-filled, and too dangerous to venture into.
(Image: New York used to be a thriving wilderness, until settlers came and changed the dynamics. Photo Credit: NY Public Library)
(Image: Present day Billion Oyster Project team in action, monitoring reef balls for successful oysters)
A shift began with the 1972 Clean Water Act, which forced cities to treat sewage. Yet, the challenge is still present with the rain. Like most coastal cities, New York uses a combined sewer system, where stormwater and sewage share the same pipes. A quarter inch of rain is enough to overwhelm it. When that happens, it all dumps into the harbour.
Fortunately, the harbor flushes itself. Freshwater flows from the Hudson, tides push and pull water through the East River, and massive currents move it around. This helps the harbour recover fast. Still, most New Yorkers don’t see this place as part of nature. The harbor spans 200,000 acres — the same size as the five boroughs combined — and it’s the city’s largest open space. It has no other competing uses. It could be made wild again, but only if people understand its value. Once I learned all of this, I couldn’t unsee it.
(Image: Wildlife is returning to New York Harbor)
Murray and I began dancing around a question: What if students at the Harbor School could help bring oysters back? I had the farming background, Murray had the educational background. That’s how the Billion Oyster Project was born.
The idea was to give students hands-on, real-world experience via oysters, similar to how I grew up. Our first major grant came from the Port Authority with a plan to build six small oyster reefs that students learning to scuba dive could use for training. At the time, the scuba programme was being run by a dedicated couple hauling tanks twice a week in the back of their 25-year-old Honda Civic.
(Image: Hands-on education and oyster restoration is the lynchpins for Billion Oyster Project)
So when we applied for the grant, we included a compressor, diving gear, and other in-water essentials. Murray and I realized reef building was just as much a teaching tool as it was an opportunity to provide critical resources the school wasn’t getting elsewhere. It could be the backbone of something bigger.
This is true for oysters in New York Harbour, and for almost any environmental solution: if people aren’t involved, the work won’t last. Technically, a billion oysters could filter the entire Upper Bay every few days. But the future of the harbor depends on whether New Yorkers choose to care.
(Image: Oyster restoration work in action off Governor's Islands, where Billion Oyster Project is headquartered)
That’s why education is so central to our work. We’re giving thousands of public school students real opportunities to connect with the harbour and take part in its restoration. Almost everyone I know who dedicates their life to environmental work had a meaningful connection to nature when they were young. But for kids growing up in cities, those moments are increasingly rare.
(Image: New York Harbor is seeing seahorses on oyster cages)
We’re seeing progress. We’ve had the occasional encounter with dolphins and whales in the harbour. Lined seahorses turn up in our oyster cages. Peregrine falcons are back on the Brooklyn Bridge. There’s a spot in the Arthur Kill where you can see a dozen osprey nests from one place. At sunrise or sunset, they’re all diving into the water, pulling up fish.
(Image: An aerial view of oyster restoration work)
Today, we’re getting the word out however we can — through public schools, events, restaurant partners, corporate teams. But at the heart of everything is purposeful learning. When one of our 4,000 volunteers comes to build oyster cages, they’re helping, but more importantly, they’re soaking all of this in.
Our goal to restore one billion oysters by 2030 and engage one million students in the process is big and ambitious. We’re talking about engaging one in ten New Yorkers. We’ve already placed 150 million oysters in the harbour, but true success means creating a large-scale, self-sustaining reef system, and having our city understand why this matters.
(Image: Pete is on a mission to restore 1 billion oysters and reach 1 million people through his work)
With the right restoration and education blueprints, and aligning with people who genuinely care, we can make some good disruption in New York. What we’re building here is a model others can follow here in the states and around the world. With enough passionate humans behind it, a billion oysters can be restored anywhere, and we can arm the next generation with what they need to build a resilient future.
As told to Andi Cross.
Resulting from the joint efforts of the Ocean & Coastal Zones community and building on the Ocean for Climate Declaration, the Ocean Breakthroughs contribute to the achievement of existing global targets, including the “30×30” goal – for at least 30 per cent of marine and coastal areas to be effectively conserved and managed by 2030. The work directly supports multilateral efforts, such as the Paris Agreement, the Global Biodiversity Framework, and the Sustainable Development Goals.
The women-led global expedition, Edges of Earth, has partnered with the Climate High-Level Champions to bring to life the Ocean Breakthroughs initiative by sharing personal accounts and climate action stories from remote coastal communities. This media partnership features interview-style stories that highlight the experiences and efforts of locals, Indigenous communities, nonprofits, and ocean scientists in addressing climate change. Nearing its third year in operation, the Edges of Earth expedition team has traveled to 48 countries working closely with diverse groups to understand and amplify their climate resilience strategies.
