In Australia there is a booming industry in oyster farming going back to the 19^th century; many of these oyster farms appear in river estuaries along the eastern and southern coast lines of Australia.

The principle is that the oysters thrive on what are essentially pollutants: excess chemicals and nutrients (e.g. nitrogen and phosphorous from fertilisers) that are washed off the land upstream and washed down into these estuaries, where the oysters filter these nutrients out of the water as they live and grow! In some ways then, oyster farming is quite good for the environment.

The oysters are caged in baskets strung between wooden poles and rails. The challenge here is that these are very particular and challenging conditions for timber to perform in. Not only have you got the moisture and the warmth that would encourage rot and decay but there is actually a bigger problem than that: shipworms, that live in salt water. One of a number of animals known as ‘marine borers’, these shipworms can quite easily eat through and undermine the structure of the wood. A nice meal for a few marine borers could break the wooden structures, meaning several very nice (and valuable) pots of oysters floating off out to sea – not a great result.

So, to eliminate the problem, the wood needs to be given qualities and performance to resist rot and shipworms. Traditionally this was done with non-durable or chemically treated toxic wood species or products, until now.