World Animal Protection has presented its Sea Change award to Nigel Sanders, a Swansea, Wales, based fishermen, for his innovative project that reduces the impact of lost lobster pots on the marine environment and prevents lobsters and other marine animals being unnecessarily caught.
As part of his work he has championed sustainable solutions to other local fishermen and worked hard to secure funding for innovation projects.
World Animal Protection’s Sea Change campaign focusses exclusively on the problematic presence of ghost fishing gear in oceans and the coastal environment. As part of the campaign in the UK, the organisation is working to find sustainable solutions to the problem of ghost gear and is showcasing the fishermen and women involved in sustainable fishing and the activities already happening in the industry to reduce the impact of lost gear.
UK campaign manager for Sea Change, Alyx Elliott, said, “Projects like the one that Nigel has been involved in are incredibly important because they lessen the impact that lost fishing gear that would have if it was left to float around in the oceans, indiscriminately catching and killing all different types of marine animals. We were really impressed with the simple yet effective solutions that Nigel has been trialling, and hope that they can eventually be rolled out as standard practice across all lobster fisheries.”
Nigel said, “My boat, Danny Buoy, is named in memory of my son, Daniel, and fishing is my life. I want there to be a future for fishing and I want to be part of it. I don’t want to spend years annihilating the environment and move onto something else, we have a responsibility to look after our livelihood.”
This is the first Sea Change Champion Award but World Animal Protection hope to make it an annual event. The organisation will continue to celebrate individuals in the fishing industry like Nigel who are working to tackle ghost fishing gear, and assist them in promoting these projects to other fishermen.
