GHOST NETS; act, engage and educate

Across the northern part of Australia there is an organisation called Ghost Nets Australia. 

For some years now they have been working with Indigenous Rangers, northern Indigenous Communities, as well as scientists and other partners on a variety of actions and activities to remove the wandering death traps known as ghost nets. These silent predators continue to entangle and kill long after the are discarded or lost by fishing vessels. The nets are often found washed on shore, deposited by currents enmass into estuaries and onto beaches and rock, often with creatures still entangled. 

Just in time! This beautiful turtle was found barely alive during patrol by Dhimurru Rangers. Photo by Jane Dermer.

If the nets haven't reached shore they may lie unseen near the surface and can damage boats traveling across the water. To get some perspective on the problem an example is sited of a six tonne gill net extracted from the coast of North East Arnhem Land in 2006. It required a partnership effort from several organisations to get the heavy cumbersome net off the beach.

Collection of tonnes these of nets by Indigenous Rangers and volunteers has continued over many years. One outcome has been the re-use of nets through art workshops and exhibitions. This active innovation has resulted in a wider public understanding of the nature of the ghost net threat and greater community engagement.

Workshop participants at St Pauls Village on Moa Island, Torres Strait. Picture by Dennis Newie.

Well known ghost net artist Nancy Nawwi (pictured in red) from Darnley Island very graciously devoted a lot of time to working on the fish. Photo by Greg Adams

For more information click here and to request an electronic copy of their newsletter here

'Art and the walls of death' (click here) is another article with great photos about the Ghost Nets project.

www.ausmepa.org.au

GHOST NETS 2004-2009; Summary Report from Australia's northern shores

Article taken from GNA news issue 5 

Ghost Nets Australia (GNA) Summary Report Between 2004 and 2009, Ghost Nets Australia (GNA) rangers removed and recorded 6,035 nets of varying sizes across approximately 1500km of north Australian coastline. The data that rangers recorded from these nets built into such a large database that GNA thought it was about time to get it published! So in the middle of this year, the data was collated into a summary report that gives an indication of the type and origins of the nets, as well as highlighting the impact that they have on the marine environment. All this data highlighted distinct patterns showing the accumulation of nets in certain areas, or net ‘hotspots.’ These hotspots are predominantly found in the north-eastern and north-western corners of the Gulf and are the reason why the rangers in those areas are working so hard to clear their beaches! By matching the nets found to examples in the ‘Net Kit’, compiled by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), an indication of both their type of fishery and the country from which they originated has been possible. The most frequently recorded nets were trawl nets and came from Taiwan and Indonesia. Ghost nets are a threat to many marine animals, particularly turtles (of which six of the world’s seven species are found in north Australian waters).  The nets recorded by GNA contained fish, crabs, sharks, sea snakes, crocodiles, dugong and over 100 turtles.  Unfortunately, the true number of animals caught in nets could be expected to be significantly higher than that recorded, as the passage of time may see many of the trapped animals decay out of the net before they are found. The results of the summary report confirm what rangers have been saying for many years - ghost nets are a huge problem in north Australia. It is only through the hard work that rangers do to record and remove the nets that people will understand the problem and change can happen. The GhostNets team would like to send a big thank you to all the rangers who recorded this data, to everyone who helped put this document together and to those who have helped make the program a success. Copies of the 2004-2009 GNA Summary Report can be found on the GhostNets Australia websitewww.ghostnets.com.au

www.ausmepa.org.au

GHOST NETS AUSTRALIA: Dealing with debris

An article taken from GNA issue 5 here

From GNA newsletter here

Since 2010 Ghost Nets Australia (GNA) has expanded our work to a broader issue of marine debris, we did this as a normal response after clearing the beach of nets, naturally moving on to the rest of the rubbish brought in by the tides. In doing this we became part of a global movement to combat marine litter. 

We’ve discovered that this rubbish issue is bigger than our scope and wish to introduce a partner “Tangaroa Blue” who works with community groups to clean beaches and record information about this rubblish.  Heidi Taylor is the founder of Tangaroa Blue and talks about how her organisation came about;

Once you start picking up marine debris on the beach, it's hard to walk past any item that shouldn't be there. Back in 2004 walks along Ellensbrook Beach in the south west of Western Australia meant coming back with armfuls of rubbish, so we started taking bags with us, and always managed to fill those, and so we started organising beach clean ups. And guess what? We never come back with an empty rubbish bag.....

That's when Tangaroa Blue Ocean Care Society was formed and launched The Australian Marine Debris Initiative. And by 2011 more than 6500 volunteers along 500 coastal sites around  Australia have removed well over 650,000 bits of marine debris. Now not only did we want to remove the debris from the coast to ensure that it wouldn't entangle or be ingested by marine life and seabirds, but we collected data on exactly what we were finding, and this is all housed in the National Marine Debris Database.

The goal for the database is to provide information and evidence on what is being washed up at different sites around Australia and New Zealand, which can then be used to help trace the items back to the source, and ultimately to find practical ways of stopping those items from ending up in the marine enviornment in the first place.
Communities, industry groups, government agencies, schools and individual volunteers have joined the Australian Marine Debris Initiative by adopting a section of coastline on which to run regular marine debris monitoring clean ups and clean up materials, training & support and educational materials are all provided for those who register.

For more information on how to get involved visit www.oceancare.org.au or email heidi@oceancare.org.au

Teachers wishing to incorporate marine studies into their teaching plans AUSMEPA has units of work on Marine Stormwater Pollution here and Student Leadership here, which may assist in getting students working with community projects like these.

www.ausmepa.org.au