In 1989, convinced that a dying upstream watershed was killing his oysters downstream, “Grandpa Oyster” Shigeatsu Hatakeyama began planting trees in the mountains above Japan’s Kesennuma Bay.
He was right and his efforts paid off. Nutrients carried down from the reforested slopes revived the phytoplankton his oysters fed on. When a 2011 tsunami wiped out his farm, the bay, fed by the forest he rebuilt decades earlier, helped the water recover quickly enough that he was able to maintain his farming business.
Posted: August 8, 2026