[ ENVIRONMENT ]
Each piece of fishing gear used in fishing is subject to certain risks of being damaged from rough use at sea and becoming useless or being lost.
new fishing gear, which explains why many fishers would rather invest in new gear than retrieve lost equipment. In deeper regions of the sea beyond continental shelf areas, attempts at retrieval are unlikely to be successful in any case. Although net losses at sea can never be completely prevented, some causes for it can be (or can be limited). For example, illegal disposal of worn-out nets in the sea could be alleviated if the regulatory authorities introduced personal registration of all nets and made handing in old nets easier. Setting up a deposit and return system for nets would also be a sensible idea. Responsibilities would have to be clarified and tasks clearly allocated. The legal foundations are actually already in place. At an international level, both the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and the
MARPOL Convention prohibit the disposal of fishing gear at sea. Article 48 of the EU Fisheries Control regulation obliges fishers to report the last known location of lost nets. However, such requirements are often ineffective, because they are not sufficiently enforced. Various national and international organisations, as well as private companies, attempt to fill the gap by increasing awareness of the problem and publicising retrieval of ghost nets from the seas. These include, for example, the WWF, the Ocean Voyages Institute, Gesellschaft zur Rettung der Delphine (Dolphin Rescue Society), Nofir, Healthy Seas with Ghost Diving and other initiatives. The Global Ghost Gear Initiative (GGGI), which was established in 2015 by World Animal Protection, specifically deals with the issue. It involves NGOs, the private sector, the
fishing industry, scientists, governments and top-level organisations (e.g. UNEP, FAO, NOAA, CSIRO, EU-GD, MARE) working together on specific projects. As part of a project to identify fishing gear in Pacific waters, for example, the GGGI is working together with local fishers, the FAO and the state authorities of Indonesia and the Netherlands.
Lots of ideas, but no general solution in sight There are plenty of ideas, technical solutions and other measures globally to prevent the loss of fishing gear or to make finding and retrieving it easier. These include tiny acoustic underwater transponders that can be attached to the nets and require very little electricity, so that they can work for months without requiring new batteries. With new GPS locating
systems, it would be possible to precisely mark the locations at which nets were lost. To keep electrosensitive sharks away from ghost nets, it is often enough to simply attach small magnets to the net. Side-scan sonars, which generate 360-degree maps of the sea floor using sound waves, are helpful for tracking down lost fishing gear. With their help, sources of interference such as ghost nets and other fishing gear can be detected. Underwater drones can also be helpful, such as the remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) from Deep Trekker. Some projects focus on prevention and offer fishers financial incentives for reporting lost gear or old damaged nets, so that they never become ghost nets in the first place. Perhaps net materials that degrade much more quickly in the water and thereby limit the Eurofish Magazine 3 / 2021
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