Sustainable fishing nets
Our oceans are home to countless animals. Protecting animals should be reason enough for us to treat the oceans and their inhabitants in a consciously sustainable way. The ocean also plays an absolutely vital role for the climate and for us humans as well. Catching fish in a considerate and sustainable way is good not just for the animals in the oceans, but for all of us.
The constant battle to get the best fishing quotas results in greater overfishing and causes irreparable damage. While driftnets, as their name suggests, simply drift in the ocean luring herrings, salmon and tuna fish into a deadly trap, what are known as trawlers of one or several ships capture everything along with the drift fish, which is unable to escape in time, dragged through the sea. So animals and plants are equally affected.
Problem with plastic fishing nets
But it not just the „how“ which has an impact on our environment, it is also the „with what“. Classical fishing nets, and ropes, used to breed mussels, mostly comprise plastic. Parts which are broken off, or cannot be salvaged for other reasons, remain intact for decades. These ghost nets, as they are known in technical jargon, become death traps for all kinds of marine life which gets tangled up in them. If humans do not remove these traps from the ocean, they will stay there for centuries representing a danger to the ocean habitat and its inhabitants.
Possible solutions
Thailand has come up with a solution to the problem of plastic fishing nets, which benefits the oceans and the creatures who live there. Fishermen are being called upon to collect old fishing nets. They can then sell them to companies which recycle them to make other products. This gives, above all, poorer fishermen the chance to make a little bit of money
And science too has not been idle: in Spain, with regard to the breeding of mussels in particular, researchers are devoted to the production of plastic ropes of bioplastic materials which are eco-friendly because they are biodegradable. They are decomposed by the sea water and broken down into their natural ingredients which puts an end to any danger to the creatures living in the sea.
Source & further information:
ORF Zeit im Bild: Spain: battle against plastic waste in the oceans:
Sustainable fishing – What does Greenpeace mean by this? | Greenpeace
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