Excerpt and Photo from fairplanet.org
Ghost nets are lost or abandoned fishing gear made of synthetic fibres, plastic, and nylon. They are a significant threat to marine life as they take centuries to degrade. They stay in the water long after they’ve been cast off from fishing boats, slowly breaking down into smaller plastic pieces while trapping marine life and destroying coral reefs and shorelines.
For six years, between 2016 and 2022, local islanders in Malaysia’s Tioman Island Marine Park tackledthe ghost netproblem head-on. They retrieved 145 nets, weighing over 21 tonnes, from the island’s waters.
Though ghost nets are just a fraction of all fishing gear left in the ocean, over 650,000 marine animals get caught in these nets every year.
The locals of Tioman Island are not standing idly by. Conservation group Reef Check Malaysia has given islanders the tools and training to fight back. Armed with information from a hotline that collects reports from dive centres, snorkel guides, and tourists, these islanders head out to reefs and beaches to hunt down the ghost nets.