Small-scale tuna fishers in the Azores are taking part in what is thought to be the world’s first competition to remove abandoned fishing gear at sea.
The Azores Ghost Gear Retrieval Competition runs from June to September 2021 and encourages pole-and-line fishers to collect the lost, abandoned or discarded gear and bring it back to shore for responsible disposal. The fishers who retrieve the most gear will be declared the winners on the Azores Day of the Ocean on 11 November 2021.
This year’s competition, the first in a series of three, will see six to 12 boats competing during a four month period. On the first day of the competition, around 500 kg of fishing gear including nets, cables and buoys was removed from the ocean.
"The pilot project happening this year will be particularly important to highlight the role fishers can play in driving improved environmental practices at sea and helping tackle environmental issues such as ghost fishing,” said Carla Damaso, Presidente da Direcçao Azores Ocean Observatory.
“We hope that we can create awareness of ghost fishing issues amongst Azorean Tuna Fishers, and evidence that our model of collecting fishing gear out at sea is replicable and can be successfully extended to the entire tuna fishing fleet in future competitions,” she said.
