Anita Rani's East Coast Road Trip: Mersea Island

The next stop on Anita's road trip is West Mersea in Essex. While the county may be known for engineering and car manufacturing, along its coastline one industry has a much longer history. Oysters have been harvested here for more than 2,000 years, cultivated in the creeks around Mersea Island. Over the decades, oyster farming has adapted to changing environmental conditions and the arrival of the non-native Atlantic rock oyster. To experience what oyster harvesting is like today, Anita heads onto the brackish waters to meet the people farming oysters. She also meets the team investigating how the non-native Atlantic rock oyster is affecting the local ecosystem and whether it could play a role in helping coastal habitats respond to rising sea levels. Along the way, Anita looks back through the Countryfile archives at the people and projects shaping life around our coastline.