As part of an annual ghost gear removal competition project in 2021, the Azores fleet has removed more plastic fishing gear from the ocean, by weight, than it lost on an annual basis, providing it with a strong clam to be the worlds first plastic neutral fishery.
Achieving plastic neutrality has become a key goal among organisations around the world, particularly those closely associated with ocean plastics, such as fishing nets and lines. In order to obtain plastic neutral status, the International Pole and Line Foundation (IPNLF), in association with Azores Ocean Observatory (OMA), Azores Fisheries Observer Programme (POPA), Associação de Produtores de Atum e Similares dos Açores (APASA), Federação das Pescas dos Açores (FPA) and the Institute of Marine Research (IMAR), developed a model for a ghost gear retrieval competition to be held among the Azores pole-and-line fleet.
POPA has been collecting data on the fishing gear loss rates of the pole-and-line fleet from 2019 until 2021. These findings demonstrated that the entire one-by-one fleet only produces a total 0.5 kg of fishing gear related litter on an annual basis. Based on this and results of past competitions, IPNLF anticipated that the competition would result in at least 100kg of ghost gear being retrieved, and that the Azores fleet would attain plastic neutral status.
The competition ran between June and September 2021 and while the Covid-19 pandemic meant this year’s competition was used as a pilot event, it was a great success. Seven vessels of the APASA pole-and-line fleet took part in the three-month competition. These vessels were advised to collect marine litter that they encountered on fishing trips, with a focus on removing ghost gear. The weight and type of collected debris was recorded by onboard POPA observers who gathered evidence with photographs.
Once weighed and recorded, the collected ghost gear was disposed of responsibly through Lotaçor, a publicly-owned Azorean organisation supporting the fishing sector.
Throughout the 2021 competition, the seven APASA vessels retrieved 452.1 kg of marine plastic litter. 437.6 kg of this was ghost gear in the form of buoys, nylon cables and multifilament nets. This means that, in three months, these vessels retrieved 875 times more ghost gear in weight than they lost annually in their own fishing operations.
The Azores Ghost Gear Retrieval Competition has been confirmed for the next two years as a result of the support of both Biocoop France and pioneer sustainability brand Fish4Ever.
