This session will explore successful management approaches to prevent and remediate harm from abandoned, lost, and discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) from capture fisheries throughout the world’s fisheries. Adverse effects of ALDFG can include entanglement of and ingestion by animals, damage to sensitive marine and nearshore habitats, release of microplastics and plastic additives, and economic costs to the fishing, tourism, and maritime industries. This session will explore fisheries management, policy and regulatory initiatives to reduce gear loss or abandonment; and research investigating the quantities, sources, transport, fate, and reuse of ALDFG. We will also explore methods to reduce harm from ALDFG once it is lost in the ocean, such as retrieval programs and fishing gear design to reduce ghost fishing.
Organizer: Joan Drinkwin, Natural Resources Consultants, [email protected]
Co-organizers: Cara Megill, Katherine Stevens