Action 56: Abandoned, lost, discarded fishing gear - Snagging sites and historic dumping grounds
Action Title: Identify hot spot areas through mapping of snagging sites or historic dumping grounds working with other initiatives, research programmes and with fishing organisations.
Lead Party(ies): No Lead
What is the issue?
During fishing operations gear can be abandoned, lost or discarded - becoming marine litter. In the marine environment this equipment floats or can get caught up on either the seabed, habitats like reef structures or rocky outcrops. This ghost gear then continues to catch and entangle marine animals, act as transport or a vector for non-indigenous species and can also fragment over time into smaller particles, contributing to the microplastics problem. This action aimed to identify where there are hotspot areas of such abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) in the North East Atlantic (see also Action 57 also relating to ALDFG)
What has OSPAR Done?
Since the adoption of the RAP, there has been a growing understanding of the issue, experience in addressing it and increased political awareness. As a first step OSPAR has collated information relating to on going initiatives and experiences at the national, regional and global scale. ALDFG is a persistent issue and this collated information will form the evidence base of future work.
Final outputs and published reports
ACTION COMPLETE
This Action was partly delivered through the EU-funded CleanAtlantic project; in addition OSPAR collated information on global, regional and national initiatives of relevance.
