Published:
Oct 22, 2022 10:02 GMT
Currently, fishing gear represents one of the main sources of plastic pollution in the oceans.
The effects of environmental pollution with plastics and microplastics have been felt in places as remote as Antarctica, and represent one of the main threats to marine ecosystems. Every year, hundreds of thousands of fishing nets are abandoned, discarded or lost in the oceans, becoming one of the main sources of this pollutant.
Annually, about two % of fishing gear used by commercial fisheries ends up as garbage in the oceans. It may seem like a low percentage, but if they were all joined, the result would be a network so large that it could circle the earth 18 timesof agreement to an investigation by the Australian Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO).
During their study, the scientists used data on global fishing effort and 450 interviews with fishermen from seven countries to determine three key points about fishing gear: what are the five most used types, how many are used and lost annually and what are their characteristics, which depend on the boat and the type of fishing practiced.
A problem on a global scale
The results obtained, published in the journal Science Advances, indicate that smaller fishing vessels tend to lose more gear, such as hooks or traps, while bottom trawlers lose more net than midwater trawlers.
“We have discovered that 14 billion of longline hooks, 25 million pots and traps and almost 740,000km of fishing longlines end up in our oceans through global commercial fishing activities,” said Denise Hardesty, co-author of the research.
“Our updated estimates help highlight where efforts need to be focused […] to reduce the fishing gear that ends up in our oceans,” said Kelsey Richardson, another of the authors, who highlighted the importance of the study to reach the CSIRO goal of reducing by one 80% plastic waste reaching the environment by 2030.
