April showers bring May …. oysters! Spring is the time for new growth across Georgia, and that’s exactly what’s happening at Martha Randolph Stevens Park in Liberty County. This waterfront community park experienced significant erosion along its creekfront from 2021 to 2025, resulting in unsafe conditions that prevented public access. In late 2025, Georgia Conservancy, in partnership with the Seabrook Village Foundation, installed a living shoreline along the park’s banks. Living shorelines are an erosion-control method that uses natural materials, such as oysters and vegetation, to absorb wave energy. They act as a nature-friendly alternative to bulkheads, which disrupt the connection between upland and lowland features.
Learn more about this project and other Georgia Conservancy-led salt marsh restoration projects
In April, the living shoreline entered a new phase of growth. Our team deployed more than 300 bags of recycled oyster shell onto the edges of this living shoreline, where they will act as an important foundation to encourage wild oysters to grow into healthy reefs. As nearby adult oyster reefs in this river enter their spawning season in May, the oyster larvae they create will swim through the creek waters looking for a place to settle. By placing these recycled oyster shells on the living shoreline, along with the low-profile concrete Flexamat that stabilizes these creek banks, oyster larvae will have a new place to settle and grow into thriving oyster reefs.
These shells were recycled from across the state by our partners at Shell to Shore. Their partnership even stretched to our own Oyster Roast, where you may have seen their volunteers recycling shells for projects like this one. After gathering shells from events or restaurants, the empty oyster shells are then placed in a sunny outdoor spot to sit in the sun and “cure”, essentially allowing nature to remove the dead tissues. The bio-degradable mesh bags used at Martha Randolph Stevens Park were filled by more than 30 volunteers during a Georgia Conservancy service day in March.
These recycled shell bags will be accompanied by new experimental reef substrates being tested by researchers at Savannah State University. Restoration projects focused on oyster reef growth, like this one, can be costly. To combat those costs and make restoration projects more accessible, Dr. Dionne Hoskins-Brown and her masters’ student, Kaila Leonard, are researching low-cost alternatives to oyster reef substrates. Their options include oyster “ragpots”, a homemade concrete-dipped cloth that forms a pot with a high surface area for oyster settlement. Kaila and her advisor will also use BESE-elements®, a biodegradable, flexible, interlocking 3D mesh mat made from potato-derived products. Leonard and the Hoskins-Brown lab will continue monitoring oyster growth on recycled, bagged oyster shell and on these alternative substrates over the next year to determine the best substrate options for future restoration projects.
By bringing together volunteers, researchers, construction crews, and the local community, this living shoreline has united hundreds of people with a shared goal of restoring this habitat and protecting a beautiful community site. As we begin monitoring how this living shoreline will grow, we are optimistic that our efforts to reconnect people and nature will have a lasting impact.
