The royals may have left Boston after their Earthshot Prize Awards Ceremony last Friday, but one local organization is continuing the mission of piloting solutions to the world’s environmental challenges.
Boston-based Stone Living Lab is partnering with Living Seawalls, a 2021 Earthshot Prize finalist, for an ecological restoration project in Boston Harbor. The groups will install panels that mimic the natural shoreline ecosystems at two harbor sites with low marine biodiversity. This will be Living Seawalls’ first panel deployment in North America.
Australia-based Living Seawalls caught the interest of the Prince and Princess of Wales last year for its solution to the flat, featureless surfaces created by marine construction. The team found that these surfaces deprive marine plants and animals of a place to live and hide from prey or environmental stressors. Living Seawalls created scalable mosaics that create a habitat for organisms like crabs, barnacles and seaweed.
Melanie Gárate, the director of climate engagement at Stone Living Lab, said it was the Earthshot team that connected last year’s finalist with her organization. While meeting with Prince William and Princess Kate along the Boston Harbor to announce the partnership last week, Gárate said William expressed interest in bringing together groups to combine “gray infrastructure with green infrastructure.”
“Prince William really would love to continue the connection of previous finalists and awardees to current and future host communities,” Gárate said. “He wants this to be something that impacts the local communities long term, not just when the Earthshot was hosted here.”
Stone Living Lab is a partnership between Boston Harbor Now and UMass Boston, as well as groups at the city, state and federal level, Gárate said. The organization develops monitoring systems and research projects to test nature-based solutions to coastal resilience in urban areas.
Gárate said a UMass Boston Ph.D. student working with the lab had piloted something similar to the Living Seawalls prototype. This new partnership will allow Stone Living Lab to expand on that work.
Stone Living Lab aims to deploy the seawalls at two sites next year. Gárate said they’re eyeing locations in East Boston, Chelsea and near the Children’s Museum.
"We want this to focus in on urban areas. Often urban areas are much more environmentally degraded than other areas,” Gárate said.
In addition to speaking with local communities about the seawall placements, Gárate said they also need to confirm the spots are structurally sound and have the right amount of sunlight.
Gárate said the team plans to have multilingual signage and engagement activities around the panels once they’re up and running.
“It’s really nice for the community to see that environmental quality and protection are being acted on,” Gárate said. “Right now, we’re living in a world where…climate action, environmental action can seem overwhelming. So, I hope this will give some positivity to folks who are really worried about the state of the environment.”
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Due to incorrect information supplied to BostInno, Katherine Dofforn of Living Seawalls was misidentified in the team photo.
