Fishers never want to lose gear. Still, abandoned, lost, and discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) comprises an astounding proportion of the macro plastics found in our oceans, with some estimates indicating that ALDFG makes up to 46 – 70 percent (by mass) of the floating macro plastic in the ocean gyres. Lost fishing gear is problematic because it can continue to harvest, entangle, or smother aquatic life and marine habitats indefinitely. Solutions are steadily evolving, from improving gear design to developing new plastic recycling technologies. However conservation practitioners would greatly benefit from a tool that would allow transparent visualization of the complete life cycle of fishing gear.

Fishing gear supply chains are extremely complex and lost gear can travel for hundreds or even thousands of kilometers on ocean currents, making it extremely difficult to trace gear back to its origin to consider appropriate preventative measures. This is exemplified in the Hawaiian archipelago, where gear from across the Pacific Rim finds its way onto the pristine shores and coral reefs of the most remote island chain in the world.

To add to the tracking challenge gear’s life cycle is complex. Gear such as a net might have twine produced in one location, then be assembled into a net in another, then sold as a completed net in another, and potentially used for fishing in yet another. The complete story of a piece of gear’s journey from cradle to grave is often unclear.

A digitally searchable collection of the life-cycle of fishing gear could enhance efforts to address ALDFG by allowing:

•  Manufacturers to identify gear that is prone to loss, initiate corresponding design improvements, and recognise opportunities for expanding extended producer responsibility schemes;

•  The seafood industry to assessing gear loss risk from within their own supply chains;

•  Fishers and vessel operators to strategically identify where additional training and capacity building is needed, both related to best practices and also recovery techniques;

•  Ports to illustrate a need for expanded port reception facilities, based on volume and geography;

•  Governments and fisheries managers to guide collaboration across regional boundaries to address ALDFG originating from foreign waters, including the identification of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing hotspots. They could also use the tool to identify how to allocate resources, such as through improving port reception facilities, for example;

•  Academic institutions to inform research related to fisheries sustainability, plastics traceability, geophysical phenomenon, the blue economy, etc;

•  Conservation practitioners and non-governmental organisations to target efforts toward certain geographic regions, gear classes, or fisheries. They could also use the tool to leverage opportunities for strategic collaboration across a broad group of sectors.

Possible Solution

Use of blockchain technology could be one approach, but the key goal is to ensure the information would be easily accessible and accurate.

•  How might we map the journey of fishing gear throughout its life-cycle – from material origin to final use case - and use these insights to minimise contamination from ALDFG gear?

It would be useful to identify a seamless way to incorporate information about nature of the life cycle of fishing gear into the GGGI global data portal (https://globalghostgearportal.net) using the portal’s API including the gear’s fate at the end of its life (i.e. found discarded, recycled, landfill, incineration, etc.