A decline of the European oyster populations in addition to its increasing demand and an overpopulated Earth has stimulated aquaculture practices. These practices may be more or less successful according to, e.g., locations or environmental characteristics. To understand the overlap between natural oyster populations and aquaculture in terms of locations and demands, the NORA Production Working Group aims to launch the Historical Aquaculture initiative, which proposes a collaborative effort to gather the data needed for the study. Oyster cultures not only offer food provisioning but also have important ecosystem services thus gathering historical culture data from 1800s onwards will provide an up to date status in Europe and evaluate if aquaculture locations for flat oyster were located in the same place that the natural beds replacing their overall functions

5th International Conference of the Native Oyster Restoration Alliance (NORA), Scaling-up European Oyster Reef Restoration, 6-8 November 2023, Middelburg, The Netherlands.-- 1 page, figures