derelict fishing gear

The NOAA Marine Debris Program’s Pacific Islands Region of American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Hawai‘i spans across 5,239,989 square miles, and is our largest region. Despite their geographic isolation, these island communities are not isolated from the issue of marine debris. Island communities face unique challenges around managing marine debris, including limited land mass, waste infrastructure, and currents that carry debris from afar. Five marine debris prevention and removal projects supported by the NOAA Marine Debris Program are in progress in the Pacific Islands Region. These small communities are leading the way with large efforts.

Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) recently completed a marine debris removal project with the support of a Fishing for Energy grant, a partnership between the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the NOAA Marine Debris Program, Covanta, and Schnitzer Steel. Florida's DEP and their partners worked to locate and remove derelict fishing gear and other marine debris from four artificial reefs in the Charlotte Harbor Aquatic Preserves on the southwest coast of Florida.

Native Americans have lived on these lands since time immemorial. Their roots are deeply embedded in the land, waters, and genealogy of this place. During National Native American Heritage Month we celebrate the countless contributions of Native peoples, their important history, present perseverance, and future. The NOAA Marine Debris Program is proud to work with indigenous communities in stewardship efforts that help to understand and reduce the impacts of marine debris. One such project, with the Makah Tribe, focused on the removal of derelict fishing gear within the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, along the northwest corner of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State and the Makah Tribe’s Usual and Accustomed Fishing Area.

The delicate and extraordinary environment of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (monument) receives an estimated 52 metric tons of derelict fishing gear every year from commercial fisheries all over the Pacific. Derelict fishing gear refers to nets, lines, pots, traps, and other fishing equipment that has been lost, abandoned, or discarded in the marine environment. Most modern fishing gear is made of long-lasting and/or synthetic materials, such as plastic and metal, that can remain in the environment for many years. Derelict nets and ghost fishing are a haunting problem in the monument, and their removal is an important part of protecting and preserving the unique native ecosystem of Papahānaumokuākea.

Today, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a partner of the NOAA Marine Debris Program, announced eight grants totaling $412,000 to support activities in California, Connecticut, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Oregon to reduce the amount of derelict fishing gear in the marine environment. The grantees will leverage an additional $247,000 in matching contributions, with a total of $659,000 dedicated for this work that is anticipated to prevent more than 845,000 pounds of fishing gear from potentially entering coastal waters.

Up to 20,000 pots from Delaware’s recreational blue crab fishery may sit on the murky bottom of Delaware’s Inland Bays, getting swept around by the currents and mired in the mud. There, they await rescue – inadvertently scraping across the bottom, getting in the way of boats, and continuing to ghost fish by trapping crabs, fish, and other wildlife. A new project, led by the University of Delaware and Delaware Sea Grant, is using side-scan and live sonar to identify and recover derelict crab pots lost and abandoned in Delaware’s Indian River Bay.

Most of us in coastal communities know the term “ghost fishing” and why it is bad, but to get a handle on the problem here in the Texas Mid-Coast area local scientists are diving deeper into the issue by looking for the root causes of the problem. The Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program, with funding from a NOAA Marine Debris Program removal grant, is expanding efforts to remove derelict traps and gather standardized data that can be used to better assess the ecological and economic impacts and help identify the causes of trap abandonment.

Today, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), a partner of the NOAA Marine Debris Program, announced the 2021 Request for Proposals for the Fishing for Energy Partnership. The NOAA Marine Debris Program is pleased to be part of this collaboration, along with NFWF, Covanta, and Schnitzer Steel to provide up to $500,000 in grant funding this year to support strategies that reduce the impacts of derelict fishing gear on marine and coastal environments and navigational safety. The deadline for full proposals is Tuesday, March 30, 2021.

Today, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF), a partner of the NOAA Marine Debris Program, announced four grants totaling $643,000 to support activities in Alaska, Florida, Maine, and Washington to reduce the amount of derelict fishing gear in the marine environment. The grantees will leverage an additional $226,000 in matching contributions, with a total of $870,000 dedicated for this work.

We are excited to share that the United States Government formally joined the Global Ghost Gear Initiative (GGGI). Last month, the United States Department of State signed a statement of support for the GGGI pledging continued United States Government commitment to address abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing gear, also known as “ghost gear,” in the global ocean.