Over 320,000 square meters of ghost net collected from Marmara Sea

ISTANBUL

Within the scope of the project started in 2014, Istanbul Provincial Directorate of Agriculture and Forestry, together with the coast guard teams, have collected over 320,000 square meters of ghost net from the Marmara Sea so far.

In the provincial directorate’s project of cleaning the seas from abandoned fishing gear, divers dived to predetermined areas to collect nets and tools that were forgotten by amateur fishermen or left on purpose.

Ghost nets, which have been scientifically confirmed to damage the ecosystem, biodiversity, fish migration routes and habitats, were approximately 5,000 meters long and spread over an area of 15,000 square meters in the Marmara Sea.

Nearly 5 million square meters of area has been scanned in 192 locations in the Marmara Sea so far, while 322,620 square meters of ghost nets have been pulled to the surface and removed from the ecosystem.

Providing information regarding the works of the projects, more than 322,000 square meters of abandoned nets were not only cleaned but also recycled, stated Ahmet Yavuz, the head of Istanbul Provincial Directorate of Agriculture and Forestry.

“We have scanned an area of approximately 5 million square meters since 2014. These nets were recycled after collection. Some of the nets are used as the material for some art works, while others were utilized in the production of new nets,” Yavuz noted.

Stating that they are also working to prevent the release of fishing nets into the seas, Karaca pointed out that the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry has just initiated a project that allows the determination of who owns the nets and who left them.

“With this project, we have numbered all the fishing tools of the people fishing in the seas, from fishing line to purse seine net, with a barcode system,” Yavuz noted.

“In this way, when a ghost net is found at sea, it will be possible to determine who put the net into the sea by scanning its barcode. If fishermen inform us that the net or other fishing tools are missing or accidently dropped to the sea, we carry out cleaning work in that area.”

“If they do not report, action will be taken against the fishermen,” Yavuz explained.