Dear Subscriber First Name,

The GGGI and its members have been very active over the last couple of months! We participated in the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, France as part of Ocean Conservancy’s delegation. As part of our North American Net Collection Initiative, the GGGI hosted a best practices workshop in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada and helped host a gear removal training in Punta Allen, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Ghost gear has been a hot topic in the news lately, and we highlight articles featuring our Associate Director and GGGI members, as well as new research on Fish Aggregating Devices. We have some exciting new Data Portal updates to share with you all in addition to GGGI member highlights from Uganda Jr. Rangers and Fundación Hagamos Más. Finally, we welcome two new members to the GGGI!

The GGGI loves celebrating the successes of its members! As always, if you have any ALDFG related news that you would like to share in the next newsletter, please email caitie@ghostgear.org.

The 2024 GGGI Annual Report is now live on the GGGI website!

2024 was another landmark year for the GGGI, with us continuing to move work on ALDFG forward in a global context. We increased our core membership, welcomed Australia as our newest government member, hosted our first in-person GGGI meeting since 2020, continued our successful GGGI Small Grants Program, added features to our Global Data Portal, participated in numerous international conferences and events, including INC-4 and -5, and a great deal more.

The 2024 Annual Report details the successes of the GGGI and several of our members over the last year – huge thanks to everyone who contributed! We're always extremely proud of what we're able to achieve together as a collective. Some of the highlights in the report include:

• Foreword from the Government of Australia.

• Driving the Discussion on ALDFG.

• Key Achievements in 2024.

• Joanna Toole Legacy.

• 2024 GGGI Membership.

• Australia Joins the GGGI.

• Work Stream and Project Updates.

• Conferences and Events.

• GGGI Member Highlights.

• Looking Ahead.

The GGGI team wishes to thank all of our members who help to make all of this work possible. We continue to be inspired by everyone around the world working so hard every day to drive solutions to ALDFG!

The third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) was co-hosted in Nice, France June 8th -13th by France and Costa Rica. Over the course of five days, 15,000 participants representing various sectors from 170 countries (including 60 Heads of State and Governments) came togethr and participated in over 450 side-events. GGGI’s Global Policy Lead, Hannah Pragnell-Raasch, joined Ocean Conservancy’s broader delegation with CEO Janis Searles Jones at this prestigious ocean conservation conference. The GGGI was delighted to co-host a reception with partners titled “Mobilizing Concrete Actions to Address the Triple Planetary Crisis” with opening remarks from two GGGI government members: Panama’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, represented by Javier Eduardo Martinez-Acha Vasquez, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada, represented by Andrew McMaster, Director of International Oceans Policy. 

During the Ocean Action Panel “Preventing and Significantly Reducing Marine Pollution of all Kinds, in Particular from Land Based Activities,” Janis highlighted the urgent need for coordinated action on ALDFG. As ALDFG is the most harmful form of marine plastic pollution, Janis further emphasized the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that the United Nations has to secure an ambitious plastics treaty as we prepare for the final round of negotiations (INC 5.2) taking place at the beginning of August. 

The GGGI and Ocean Conservancy also co-hosted an event with GGGI member Costa Rica that brought together governments, private sector and NGOs to share their perspectives on “Strengthening Coherence: Aligning Action to Ocean Governance, Plastic Pollution and Marine Biodiversity”. French Minister of Environment, Agnes Pannier-Runacher, and Costa Rica’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arnoldo André-Tinoco gave opening remarks. 

In addition to the numerous events, the GGGI and Ocean Conservancy were honored to hold dedicated bilaterals with senior national decision makers, including many country ministers, as well as a number of GGGI members, galvanizing collaboration and coordinated action around the issue of ALDFG.

The GGGI’s Data Portal is the largest open-source database for abandoned, lost, and discarded fishing gear and end-of-life fishing gear globally, currently housing over 65,000 publicly available records from 40 data partners. It has recently undergone some updates to make data submission easier, including providing customized email addresses to which partners can quickly send their data for automatic submission to the portal.

Additionally, the GGGI has completely overhauled, updated and populated the Resource Library section. Users can now see over 300 publications in the library from peer-reviewed, white, and grey literature pertaining to ALDFG, EOLFG, and related topics. Users can sort through these resources by publication type, year, and popular topics. Where links to these documents exist online, they are provided for easy access. This should be a huge benefit to researchers working on ALDFG who want to understand what papers are out there and where to find them.

We are always looking for new ghost gear resources, so if you notice that a report or paper is missing from the Resource Library, please let us know! For questions about the Data Portal and the Resource Library, please email the GGGI Membership Specialist, Caitie Frenkel (caitie@ghostgear.org).

The GGGI hosted a workshop on best practices for managing trap fishing gear in Richmond, BC, Canada on May 21 and 22 as part of GGGI’s North America Net Collection Initiative (NANCI). Fishers, fisheries representatives, and NGOs from Canada, the United States, and Mexico came together to share knowledge and foster a tri-lateral dialogue on best practices for managing abandoned, lost, and discarded traps amongst the three countries. Although causes for gear loss were broadly similar across the three geographies, solutions and approaches were different, leading to a fantastic discussion between fishers and lessons learned all around.

Claudia Cecilia Olimon (GGGI Project Coordinator Consultant - Latin America), Joel Baziuk (GGGI Associate Director), and Caitie Frenkel (GGGI Membership Specialist Consultant) coordinated and facilitated the two-day workshop hosted at the beautiful John M.S. Lecky UBC Boathouse. The workshop wrapped up with a field trip to the Ocean Legacy Foundation’s Plastic Pollution Emergency Response facility where workshop participants saw how they receive and process marine plastics into pellets that can be made into new products (e.g., lumber, clothing, plant pots, etc.).

The GGGI, COBI, and CECIMS hosted a ghost gear removal training and two underwater removal campaigns in Punta Allen, Quintana Roo, Mexico from May 25 to 30. Five people were professionally trained by a qualified PADI Scuba Instructor to remove ALDFG under a PADI diver specialty course. These newly certified divers removed 19.1kg of ghost gear (mostly monofilament mesh net) from Niche Jabin, a reef in Quintana Roo. Data collected from this work was entered into the GGGI Data Portal and the PADI Aware platform.

In May, GGGI Associate Director Joel Baziuk was interviewed by CTV Morning Live and Global News in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. During these interviews, Joel discussed the harms of ALDFG locally and globally and how the GGGI is working on an international scale to combat the issue. He also highlighted recent ALDFG removals in Alert Bay, British Columbia, conducted by the Emerald Sea Protection Society (ESPS), a long-standing GGGI member. ESPS is a non-profit focused on protecting BC’s marine ecosystems from the impacts of ALDFG and has been an active member of the GGGI since 2018. With the support of the local Namgis Nation and the GGGI, ESPS conducted a large clean-up initiative in Alert Bay, located off the coast of northern Vancouver Island. You can learn more about ESPS’ work in Alert Bay in a recent Vancouver Sun article and a short video documentary produced by the GGGI, which documents our Pacific Northwest Signature Project and also highlights long-time GGGI members Natural Resources Consultants and Northwest Straits Foundation.

The Uganda Jr. Rangers were recently featured in a short documentary video “Lake of Life” produced by Dreamtown. In Lake Victoria, ALDFG from illegal fishing not only harms the environment but also creates navigational hazards and, on occasion, loss of life. This short video highlights the importance of Uganda Jr. Rangers’ cleanups and their education initiatives within local communities around Lake Victoria to help reduce these harms.

Fundación Hagamos Más

The GGGI has been supportive of the Fundación Hagamos Más’ community-centered ALDFG work since 2022, encouraging Hagmos Más to officially become a GGGI member in 2024. Over the last three years, Hagamos Mas has collected over 13 tons of discarded nylon and monofilament fishing nets from four communities located across central Baja California peninsula. They work directly with local fishers and women in small communities to empower them to become community communicators and educators. This year, Hagamos Mas has established a facility to store their collected nets and has been exploring ways to recycle them into thermal insulation panels for local homes. They are currently running a pilot program with the Instituto Tecnológico Superior de Mulegé that installs these panels into metal roofs to assess their effectiveness in reducing indoor temperatures. This initiative highlights one of the many unique ways GGGI members improve social circumstances while benefiting the environment.

WWF Germany and UMITO Partners

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is becoming more common in various industries, and GGGI members WWF Germany and UMITO Partners have been exploring ways to use this technology to find ALDFG. WWF Germany collaborated with the Microsoft AI for Good Lab and Accenture to create GhostNetZero.ai. This tool scans existing high-resolution seabed sonar data collected by various industries worldwide and indicates locations where ALDFG is likely to occur so that the data can be further validated. UMITO Partners is a relatively new member of the GGGI, and is hoping to work with Japan’s technology industry and local fisheries to find ways to address ALDFG with AI and other solutions. You can learn more about these and other initiatives in this recent article by the Global Seafood Alliance.

Ghost Net Removal in Iran

The Marin Darya Taban Dive Center facilitated a Dive Against Debris event following PADI's Dive Against Debris protocols on March 19, 2025. Six divers removed 200 kg of derelict fishing gill nets from the Dama Wreck dive site near Kish Island, rescuing approximately 200 entangled animals such as grouper (Epinephelidae), snappers (Lutjanidae), barracudas (Sphyraenidae), yellow jack (Carangidae), batfish and angelfish (Ogcocephalidae), schooling bannerfishes (Chaetodontidae), moray eel (Muraenidae), and Hawksbill sea turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata).

New Research on Drifting Fish Aggregating Devices (dFADs)

An article by Mongabay highlights a recent study that found tuna dFADs drifting through a third of the ocean. Published in Science Advances, this paper by Schiller et al. estimates that 1.41 million dFADs drifted through 37% of the world’s oceans between 2007-2021. These dFADs often drifted outside of the original tuna fishing grounds where they were deployed. Strandings were most common in the Indian and Pacific oceans, with the Seychelles, Somalia, and French Polynesia accounting for 43% of strandings. Lost dFADs contribute to coastal pollution and can damage sensitive habitats, including coral reefs, and the removal work often falls on local communities. Tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) are working to track and monitor dFADs, and the article and study both highlighted current (Parties to the Nauru Agreement, 2022) and future (Indian Ocean Tuna Commission, 2026) efforts. However, researchers are urging the wider adoption of a global framework to monitor FADs, standardize reporting, and reduce their impacts on sensitive marine and coastal ecosystems.

Welcome To Our New GGGI Members!

The GGGI membership continues to grow! Please welcome our newest members, Kyma Sea Conservation and Research (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn)  and the University of Georgia New Materials Institute (LinkedIn, X, Bluesky). We look forward to working together!