More than 11,500 kilos of abandoned, lost or discarded fishing nets, known as ghost nets, were collected in the last three months from the Chennai coast, largely from the Neelankarai-to-Kovalam section. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Tonnes of them are yet to be retrieved from our long coastline, many entangled around marine animals preventing them from moving freely.
“In fact, when the North East Monsoon sets in, the quantity of ghost nets being collected also increases depending on the wind pattern seen during the months of October to March. From December onwards, the ghost nets are observed floating closer to the shore,” says Supraja Dharani, founder of TREE Foundation, a Chennai-based non-governmental organisation that focuses on marine conservation.
Since 2021, the Foundation has been playing a key role in removing tonnes of ghost nets by empowering different stakeholders attached to the seas, the local community and the fishers being their chief ambassadors.
As part of capacity building programmes, they conduct workshops to train fishers in identifying and retrieving a net by steering their boats towards it, looking for marine species in the net, releasing it and pulling the net closer to the boat and bringing it to the shores where it is weighed and sent for recycling.
Tree Foundation currently works in the Chennai-Chengalpattu stretch of the coast, many parts of Andhra Pradesh starting from Sullurpeta, Bapatla, Prakasham, Godavari, Vizianagaram and Srikakulam, southern Odisha and western Goa.
Sea Turtle Protection Force
“Our work in retrieving ghost nets extends to more than 800 km, 285 fishing villages, and 411 fishing community members who are part of the Sea Turtle Protection Force; they are the point of contact for fishers of the respective villages,” says Supraja.
Fishermen retrieve abandon nets to give it to TREE Foundation where they are sent for recycling. They in turn receive cash incentive credited to their bank account.
One of the biggest motivations for fishers to retrieve ghost nets is the incentive they receive for the quantity they collect.
The amount of payment depends on the weight of the net. “Fifty percent of the amount goes to their bank account and the rest to the wife’s or mother’s account, which is used for children’s education, repair of nets and medical emergencies,” says the marine activist.
In the last five years, 217 tonnes of ghost nets have been handed to the TREE Foundation. To further felicitate those who have removed the maximum quantity of ghost nets, a felicitation event is held, usually in the first week of October, where other stakeholders including officers from the Coast Guard and Fisheries department are invited.
“Our success is the result of awareness programmes that we conduct teaching the fisherman how to release entangled endangered marine life including turtles, retrieve the ghost net and hand it over to TREE Foundation. Till date 974 marine megafauna have been released by the fishermen all recorded by videos or photos,” she says.
The abandoned nets are weighed and sent for recycling. The Foundation has made a pathway at its biodiversity centre in Marakkanam.
Finding corporates willing to support the programme financially is a challenge, and Supraja says they are grateful to be supported by Royal Enfield and AstraZeneca in the ghost net retrieval and incentivisation programme for fishermen along Chengalputu and Chennai coast.
The weight of these nets range from 100 to 700 kilos and tying it to their boats and bringing it to the shore is not easy.
“We want more corporates to support us in other coastal areas as well. We are soon going to set up a small unit where the nets will be shredded and made into small tiles,” she says. More support from corporates would mean getting more fishermen to join the diving team.
Removing ghost nets entangled in coral reefs will also be an extension of Foundation’s work.
Extending from coast to coast
If you are a certified diver then HCLFoundation, the CSR arm of HCL Technologies, should be happy to engage your service to scour the ocean depths for ghost nets. Under its Harit programme, the Foundation has been playing a key role in removing ghost nets.
Started in 2022 from the Chennai coast in Neelankarai, today the initiative extends along the Gulf of Mannar, coasts along Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.
HCLFoundation recently took up a massive cleanup campaign across various coastal areas involving volunteers, employees, fishers and its partner organisations.
As per data, they have successfully mapped, retrieved, and repurposed nearly 4 lakh plus kilograms of abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear (ALDFG), across several distinct coastal locations in India.
In the Gulf of Mannar, more than 12.9 metric tons of ghost nets have been removed from ecologically sensitive habitats surrounding 21 islands. In Kundapura, Karnataka, they have launched an innovative buy-back model that incentivises fishers to return discarded nets, helping recover over 10,000 kg of ghost gear.
Nidhi Pundhir, Director, HCLFoundation, says they have a MoU with the Ministry of Environment, and over the years they have built a nationwide coalition involving scientific institutions, diving teams, fisher communities, the Indian Coast Guard, coastal police, and grassroot organisations to tackle marine debris.
A dedicated ghost gear management component was integrated into the Fisher Friend Mobile Application, enabling real time tracking and reporting of ghost gear by fishing communities.
Nidhi says there is a whole process involved in recycling the ghost nets that serves as a supplementary income for communities. “When we get these nets, they have a whole lot of salt coating on it and is not easily recyclable. We are doing a lot of R&D including converting them into nets which are used for various sports activities, designing bags and for other creative use,” says Nidhi.
To engage university students to design upcycled, functional products from the retrieved nylons, the Foundation conducted the Ghost Net Innovation Challenge. Recently, on International Coastal Cleanup Day, the Foundation organised a mega cleanup campaign of oceans, involving volunteer, community members and partner organisations.
“From CSR design point of view, we have been thinking that we really need to take a district-level kind of an approach in certain places where we have higher employee strength. And we have been looking at a “convergence model” as our next step,” says Nidhi.
