Canada’s Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard Joyce Murray has announced that Fisheries and Oceans Canada has launched a third call for proposals under the Ghost Gear Fund.
The Department will provide up to $10 million in funding under this latest call for proposals, and at least 10% of the funding will go towards projects that are led by Indigenous organisations and communities.
‘Through Budget 2022, the Government of Canada is investing an additional $10 million into the Ghost Gear Fund, so we can continue doing great work with industry and partners to clean our oceans. Ghost gear is often an unintentional result from harsh weather conditions that our harvesters endure,’ Minister Joyce Murray said.
‘I am pleased that this fund is not only removing harmful plastics from our oceans, but also focussing on preventing gear loss and disposing of gear responsibly. I look forward to seeing the results from this latest round of funding.’
Since 2020, the Ghost Gear Fund has helped remove over 7300 units of fishing gear from Canadian waters. This amounts to 1295 tonnes of gear. The Ghost Gear Fund has also helped remove over 150 km of rope.
In addition to removal activities, the Ghost Gear Fund also supports projects that support responsible disposal of ghost gear, new technologies to prevent gear loss, and projects to address ghost gear in developing nations.
Proposals must be submitted by 6th June 2022, at 23:59 PST.
To date, the Ghost Gear Fund has supported 49 projects, totalling $16.7 million, under four programme pillars; ghost gear retrieval, responsible disposal, uptake and piloting of technology to prevent gear loss, and international leadership.
