The ghost gear haunting
our waters

The problem with ghost gear

This is what can happen to a whale that becomes entangled in abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing gear (ALDFG), although it is hard to say how many exactly this has happened to.

According to the Global Ghost Gear Initiative (GGGI), ALDFG, also known as ‘ghost gear’, affects marine life in every ocean across the world. It is what occurs when the nets, ropes, pots, and other fishing gear are lost at sea, becoming unattached from where they were supposed to be catching fish. Fishers then don’t know where their gear has ended up, or don’t have the ability to retrieve it. 

But just because no-one is emptying the nets, doesn’t mean they stop catching. Ghost gear keeps doing what it was designed to, catching the fish it would have, and larger animals like whales and dolphins that it shouldn’t. It can continue doing this for years, and even decades.

This phenomenon is known as ghost fishing, not just because of the ‘dead’ gear that is no longer under the control of a fisher, but because of the enormous death toll for anything caught in its clutches, unable to escape. 

Entanglement isn’t even the only risk. 

Pine Eisfeld-Pierantonio, marine pollution coordinator at Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), described what happens even when an entangled animal doesn’t suffocate: “They drag the gear behind them for weeks, months, and it can deteriorate the body condition because they won’t be able to feed themselves because they can’t dive properly, and they are using up a lot of energy.

“It’s also a problem when the gear cuts into the skin, it can sever parts of the body, it can sever the tail, it can sever the dorsal fin.

“It can injure them less severely, but they can get infections and die of the infection in the end.

“But ghost gear also gets ingested by whales and dolphins.

“We’ve had reports of the bigger whales having stomachs full of fishing gear, meaning that the whale actually feels full and will not feed themselves properly.

“And because the stomach is filled up with something that they cannot digest, even if they do feed themselves it won’t go anywhere, because the stomach is blocked with indigestible plastic.

“So they will slowly starve to death.”

Some researchers claim that ghost gear is the deadliest form of ocean debris for marine animals - not least because it is a self-perpetuating system where trapped marine life acts as a beacon for even more sea creatures to become trapped in the nets.

According to Dr Kristine Cerbule, Assistant Professor in the School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society at Heriot-Watt University, said: “Fishing gear that is used at the present are often in large parts or even fully made of durable plastic materials as they make the gear efficient at capturing fish during gear operation.

“However, this also means that, if lost, the gear creates macro- and micro-plastic pollution and has a potential to release toxic substances into the marine environment.

“Many of the gear components can cause entanglement and damage the seafloor.”

There are also further economic costs of the issue. Every fish caught in ghost gear is an economic loss for fishers, as they are losing catch that they could have sold. The cost of replacing the gear can be enormous, as well as the time lost waiting to replace it. If a fisher’s propellor gets entangled in a net, they may have to be rescued by the coastguard, which is a cost to the taxpayer. Ghost gear even compounds the issue, as active gear gets caught up in the ghost gear and is then lost as well.

There is even less data on some of the other possible effects of ghost gear, for example the amount of gear that may be sucked into cooling systems for energy projects, including nuclear reactors, causing problems onshore as well. 

Eisfeld-Pierantonio is clear about the need for better data: “There’s loads of things we don’t actually know, we don’t have that data at all.

“That research needs funding, but it’s a Catch-22; without knowing the extent of the economic problem, it’s hard to get the money to do the research.”

The international community has been aware of the problem of ghost gear since the 1980s, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), but the scope of the problem is still enormous. A 2009 report produced jointly by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the FAO, still widely cited as the best global overview of the problem, estimated that over 640,000 tonnes of ALDFG is lost each year, accounting for about 10% of all marine plastic pollution. In some regions, this proportion could be as high as 50%.

While there are laws that address the illegal dumping of ALDFG and methods to minimise the issue, there is no way to prevent the issue entirely. Gear that is deployed and left at sea, such as gillnets, are more likely to be lost. Harsh weather, such as large storms, also leads to greater losses, as well as areas where the seabed is more rocky than sandy, as this can cause gear to snag and become trapped.

There are also massive gaps in the data. There has been incomplete tracking of exactly how much gear is being lost, where exactly it is ending up, and the full extent of its consequences. It is also difficult to figure out the exact economic cost of the issue, but in some areas the localised cost has been estimated to be in the millions of dollars.

Ghost Fishing UK

The lack of data on ALDFG can vary depending on where in the world you look, but it is definitely an issue in the UK. There are organisations that are helping bridge this gap, however.

One of them is Ghost Fishing UK (GFUK). Made up entirely of volunteers, the charity’s mission is summed up on their website as “removing ghost gear, one dive at a time”. But this is far from the extent of their activities.

GFUK was set up in 2015 by Rich Walker, after he learnt to clean-up ghost gear while working in Croatia. This clean-up method involves individuals scuba diving in teams, going deep underwater and breathing from tanks, to cut away gear caught on reefs, wrecks, and other submerged features. 

His perspective of ghost gear was fundamentally changed by his experience, and he saw an opportunity to bring what he had learnt back home.

“What I noticed was that during every dive I’d ever done in the UK, since I learned to dive here in 1991, I had seen some sort of ghost gear and just eventually started to filter it out," he said.

“I had started to believe that this gear was just part of how the underwater environment was, but suddenly realised that we can actually do something about it.”

So Walker, together with a group of passionate divers, set up the organisation - which today has over 100 divers capable of bringing in up to 5 tonnes of ALDFG a year.

This is a tiny fraction of the estimated 640,000 tonnes of ghost gear created each year, but that doesn’t stop GFUK from clearing up as much as they can.

They now have over a decade of experience in cleaning up ghost gear from the waters around the UK, managing up to 20 projects a year.

Their clean-up process has also developed, but is still pretty close to the original one Walker learnt in Croatia ten years ago. 

This process is not without its challenges. It takes skill and training to participate in these dives, and even more experience to manage them.

Walker said: “We approach fishing nets, get close to them, touch them.

“Most divers won’t do that, and rightly so, because a fishing net’s very design is to catch animals, and divers are as much an animal as anything else.

“So it is a hazardous activity to approach a fishing net, and it’s even more hazardous to attach a lifting bag to it and send it to the surface.

“If a diver gets tangled up in it on the way to the surface, there’s an injury potential, if you get tangled up at depth there’s a potential to run out of gas.

“So what we have to do is to manage those risks so that we stay as safe as possible.”

GFUK does this by putting its divers through rigorous training, ensuring they have the situational awareness to stay safe. They also always work in teams of three when clearing ghost gear, to ensure the safety of everyone involved -  a tactic that has worked so far.

It is also expensive, with one day of diving costing at least £3,000. And that’s without factoring in onshore transport and the cumulative effect of wear and tear that requires gear to be replaced. And a single project will usually take place over at least two days, if not more.

According to Walker: “If we can’t get gear the first time, we’ll figure out a new plan, persevere, and keep at a location until it’s as clean as we can make it.”

GFUK are also limited to dealing with the ghost gear they are actually aware of. 

Most of the reports they use to select dives come from other divers, although increasingly fishers are seeing the benefit of working with conservationists and have started reporting gear they have lost, or found, so GFUK can deal with it.

Walker was very clear about the relationship they hope to have with the fishing community: “Fishers have been treated badly by conservation projects in the past.

“But I want to get the fishing industry on side with what we do.

“And they are starting to engage with us more, they know we’re not trying to point fingers at them or anything like that.

“We try and explain to fishers that if we can recover a net quickly, they potentially can get it back undamaged and they can continue using it.

“So more and more we’re getting a positive engagement from the fishing community.”

The British weather is always a challenge as well, leading to dives being called off because they just can’t be done when currents are too strong or the waves too choppy. It’s why GFUK mostly work from April to October, taking winter off because of the unreliability of conditions.

But they also see their mission as bigger than just clearing up gear from UK waters. 

Walker said: “When I started the project one of the things I really wanted to do was record data on the current state of play of ghost gear in the UK.

“I think that’s important because if you want to make a change in the world, you need to be able to say firstly what the situation is, and secondly what you’ve turned it into.

“If you want to try and change policy on how ghost fishing is managed you need to be able to state the quantitative nature of the problem.”

They also put a lot of effort into capturing photos and videos that can help tell the story of ghost gear, and increase public awareness about the issue. They hope that this will help build political will to deal with the problem.

“We as a conservation project will not remove all of the fishing gear from the sea - it’s just never going to happen," he added.

“But what we can do is stop the flow of fishing gear into the sea, our information will help that.

“If we can stop the problem happening rather than going round cleaning up a problem, that’s the better strategy.”

And they are not the only ones thinking about the bigger picture.

Bigger solutions

On World Ocean Day, June 8 2025, Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) launched a campaign to help make the UK ghost gear free. They want the UK government to take action on the issue, saying it is the government that should be ultimately responsible for the issue.

Eisfeld-Pierantonio said: “We’re working on trying to get the government to change the lack of incentive for fishers to dispose of gear on land.

“We’re also trying to find harbours that will open themselves to gear where they have the facilities.”

WDC highlights that different harbours have different regulations on what can be disposed of for free, and what will incur a cost - sometimes in the thousands of pounds.

The conservation charity is calling for regulations that make it free to dispose of all fishing gear at UK harbours, and that require those harbours have systems in place to receive and process the gear.

This approach also reflects GFUK’s emphasis on working with fishers, not against them.

Eisfeld-Pierantonio wanted to make this message clear: “Ghost gear is a problem we all have, fishers included, and we need to make it easier for them to deal with the waste that comes out of their business.

“We can’t demonise fishers for doing their jobs, we need to work together.” 

But they also recognise the need to take greater action on preventing the amount of ghost gear that is created in the first place, and incorporating circular economy practices.

“There is an element of the long-term planning of what we can do with this gear.

“Because if the gear is still in good nick, theoretically it can be recycled so it could stay in the economy.

“It shouldn’t be linear, where we use it and then discard it and never use it again - and it ends up in a landfill or incinerated.

“Ideally we want it to be used, and then recycled, and then reused again, creating a circular system.

“The government is talking about a circular economy, but fishing gear is really not on their radar because they don’t think it’s a big problem.”

Dr. Cerbule also shared some other steps that are being taken: “Generally, requirements for clearly marking the gear is often highlighted as a good measure to avoid abandoned, lost, or otherwise discarded gear at sea. 

“Clear marking of deployed fishing gear position can help other vessels and marine traffic avoid it and thus also avoid potential entanglement and gear loss.

“In several fisheries, use of different biodegradable solutions are being discussed. 

“These can range from rather simple ones such as incorporating a cotton twine in pots/traps/creels that would decay faster than otherwise non-degradable plastic netting and allow escapement of animals from lost gear – therefore, limiting ghost fishing time. 

“There are also incentives and research efforts to develop new, biodegradable plastic materials to limit negative environmental effects from lost gear. 

“Both of them could potentially have a considerable effect in some of the fisheries that currently do not use such mechanisms.”

Walker and GFUK also think circular when dealing with the gear they have collected: “The vast majority by weight of what we recover is polypropylene, and there are some very good recycling pathways for that.

“It gets cleaned up and processed into little pellets that get made into new products.

“And they are able to take as much as we can bring, so there is no limit to the capacity for recycling gear.”

But while GFUK and WDC are tackling the problem of ghost gear in a UK context, ALDFG and plastic pollution more generally are a global issue.

The United Nations has been leading negotiations on a Global Plastic Treaty since 2022, aiming to create a binding agreement on the steps and timeline for making plastic consumption sustainable. As fishing gear is largely plastic, this would hopefully have some effect on the issue of ghost gear. But negotiations also stalled last year, 2024, as nations disagreed on the best approach to the issue.

However, the recent 2025 UN Ocean Conference has reinvigorated this process, and there are high hopes for the next round of negotiations in Geneva this August.

What is clear is that tackling the issue of ALDFG will take willpower and cooperation between everyone, from conservationists to the fishing industry, to the governments whose waters are fished.

Unless everyone with a stake in the issue takes responsibility, ghost gear will continue to haunt our oceans long after we are gone.