TURNING THE TIDE ON OCEAN PLASTIC POLLUTION IN THE MALDIVES

Turning the tide on ocean plastic pollution in the Maldives. New plastic neutrality project presents Maldivian fishers as a remarkable solution to ocean pollution.

The net retrieval and turtle release project which saw the International Pole and Line Foundation partner with the Olive Ridley Project, utilised the unique position of Maldivian one-by-one fishers to help clean up the oceans. The project began in 2021 when IPNLF was awarded the World Animal Protection’s first annual Joanna Toole Ghost Gear Solutions Award and concluded recently after demonstrating great success.

IPNLF are incredibly proud to share our end-of-project video and article with you.

IPNLF collaborated with 12 tuna vessels from Gemanafushi Island in the Maldives to implement a ‘ghost gear’ collection and turtle release programme which incentivised coastal fisheries to collect and upcycle lost and abandoned ghost nets they encountered whilst fishing.

In the world’s ocean today, marine wildlife face a constant existential threat. Due, in part, to a lack of regulation, commercial fishing vessels lose or abandon between 500,000 and 1 million tons of fishing gear each year. It is estimated that such fishing gear makes up 10% of ocean plastics, and up to 86% of large floating plastics in areas such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Known as “ghost gear”, discarded nets, drifting Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs) and other fishing equipment, drift aimlessly at sea unless otherwise removed.

By the end of the project, these one-by-one tuna fishers from 12 small vessels in Gemanafushi Island had collected enough ghost nets to offset the total weight of all gear loss contributions of half of the national Maldivian fleet (almost 350 Maldivian vessels). These achievements demonstrate the scale of the impact that can be had by a small fraction of fishers!

The Maldives is well-known for being an ocean sanctuary with a diverse array of marine life and the area is particularly unique as commercial net fishing is illegal in their waters. Instead, the national fishing fleet only uses environmentally sustainable pole-and-line and handline fishing methods. However, ghost nets are becoming an increasing threat to wildlife here due to rampant net fishing elsewhere in the Indian Ocean. Ghost nets and drifting FADs abandoned by vessels operating elsewhere in the Indian Ocean drift into Maldivian waters killing marine species, like turtles and sharks, and damaging critical habitats, like coral reefs and seagrass beds.

Perhaps the greatest legacy of IPNLF’s ghost gear project is in establishing a replicable model which enables local fishing communities all over the world to remove ghost gear from the ocean at a greater rate than is lost through their own fishing operations, therefore becoming plastic neutral. In the coming months they are looking for partners and collaborators to join them on these projects and help them to find new ways of recycling and upcycling collected ghost nets.