Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Monday 11 June 2018

Cleaning the seabed: Divers halt the carnage of ‘ghost’ nets

By ELENA BECATOROS few people ever see this
Associated Press scourge of the world’s ma-
POROS, Greece (AP) — rine environment. But the
There are ghosts in the problem is extensive.
ocean. Silent killers carried “Oceanic currents and
by the currents, wrapping winds can carry ghost fish-
themselves around reefs ing gear thousands of ki-
and claiming the lives of lometers,” said Veronika
millions of marine crea- Mikos, project coordinator
tures great and small, from of Healthy Seas, a Euro-
sponges and tiny crusta- pean initiative focusing on
ceans to dolphins, sharks removing abandoned fish-
and whales. ing gear and other marine
In their former lives, these litter. “Even remote Ant-
ghosts were nets and oth- arctic habitats are not free
er fishing gear essential to from this pollution. Every
the livelihoods of millions ocean and sea on Earth
around the world, and put is affected.” Healthy Seas
food on the plates of mil- was organizing a ghost net
lions more. But once lost, cleanup operation along
abandoned or discarded with divers off the Greek is-
into the sea, these nets con- land of Santorini on Friday,
tinue doing what they were World Oceans Day.
designed to do: catch fish. Lost nets can also be a fi-
Mostly made of strong plas- nancial nightmare for those
tic such as nylon, this lost In this Sunday, May 20, 2018, photo a group of divers recover an abandoned fishing net from the who make their living from
gear known as ghost nets sea near Poros island, Greece. the sea. “It causes a big
doesn’t easily decompose. Associated Press problem for a fisherman. It
“They can remain there many organisms. These or- “It is a common secret — divers’ tanks — to dislodge can destroy him, depend-
for hundreds of years and ganisms are injured and die it’s mainly fishermen who the net and bring it to the ing on how many meters (of
continue fishing,” said Ma- under a net that has been about know it — that the surface. Weighing an esti- nets) he loses,” said Vange-
ria Salomidi, environmen- caught on the rock.” bottom of the sea is full of mated 400 kilograms (882 lis Roussos, a former profes-
tal researcher at the Hel- Whole reefs can quickly abandoned nets,” said pounds) and originating sional fisherman on Poros
lenic Centre for Marine turn into barren wastelands. George Sarelakos of Ae- from a nearby fish farm, who now runs a sea taxi.
Research. The trapped fish An estimated 10 percent of gean Rebreath, a group there was no telling how Roussos said most ghost
quickly become bait, at- all marine litter in the world’s of volunteer mainly rec- long the ghost net had nets are lost by accident
tracting larger predators oceans and seas, or some reational divers that car- been there. due to storms, currents or
who in turn become entan- 640,000 tons, is made up of ries out underwater clean- The previous day, the team entanglement rather than
gled themselves. lost or abandoned fishing ups and raises awareness had recovered another deliberately discarded.
“And so starts a vicious gear, according to a 2009 about marine pollution. hefty ghost net from shallow Healthy seas, he added,
cycle which ... can kill any- report by the U.N. Food and Descending through waters in the island’s port are in the best interests of
thing from small crusta- Agriculture Organization schools of fish, a pair of dol- and managed to cut free fishermen too.
ceans such as crabs and and the U.N. Environment phins splashing overhead, at least one struggling fish “By cleaning up the sea,
lobsters to large fish, turtles, Program, while the deaths the massive net came into and several crustaceans. we have better fishing,”
seals, dolphins,” Salomidi they cause contribute to view. It lay strewn across a “The problem is extensive,” Roussos said.
added. the decline of fish stocks. seabed at a depth of 28 Sarelakos said. “In this two- Addressing the impact of
This isn’t the only damage A group of volunteer div- meters (92 feet), blanket- day activity we carried ghost nets has become
the discarded nets cause. ers aimed to disrupt this ing the rocky bottom and out, the nets we collected a top priority for many in-
When they snag on rocks cycle of destruction when crushing sponges, anemo- covered entire surfaces on ternational environmen-
or coral, they can destroy they plunged recently into nes and other delicate sea reefs. It’s not by chance tal organizations — the
entire underwater habitats. the depths off the coast of life. It took six divers about that we found many live U.N.’s food and agriculture
“A rock in the sea isn’t just the Greek island of Poros in half an hour and four lift creatures trapped in these agency is holding a fisher-
a rock,” Salomidi said. “A the Saronic Gulf to recover bags — inverted bags that nets.” Apart from divers ies meeting on the topic in
rock is full of life, it harbors some of these ghost nets. can be filled with air from and marine researchers, July in Rome.q