FIFTH GGGI ANNUAL MEETING

Fifth GGGI Annual Meeting Recap – The 5th Annual Meeting of the Global Ghost Gear Initiative took place in Bali, Indonesia on October 25th and 26th, 2018.

This was by far the largest GGGI meeting to date, with a large portion of the GGGI participant base present for the meeting. In total, there were 63 attendees representing nearly 50 individual organisations which had come together to discuss the challenges, solutions and success stories of the GGGI since its launch by World Animal Protection in 2015, according to GGGI.

There was an incredibly rich diversity of stakeholders present, with representation from the fishing industry, private sector, academia, civil society, international organizations and, for the first time, 3 governments (Indonesia, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom).

There was also a healthy mix of both GGGI veterans who have attended the annual meeting since its launch in London in 2015, as well as those who are brand new to the collective – all eager to collaborate on addressing ghost gear globally.
In addition to the requisite initial development of the GGGI Working Group work plans for 2019, member videos and lightning talks, we introduced panel discussions to the annual meeting agenda for the first time.

These panel discussions brought together participants from around the world to discuss ghost gear in specific contexts, namely: corporate supply chains and the value that GGGI presents to corporate partners; developing world perspectives on ghost gear, focusing on Myanmar, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria and Malaysia; and the Indonesian context, touching on the work that GGGI has been doing in Indonesia on gear marking with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations over the last year.

We also had an in depth discussion of the importance of collecting sound data and building evidence of the ghost gear problem around the world to better inform our solutions and outreach work.

Source GGGI