Report on good practices to prevent and reduce marine plastic litter from fishing activities.

Abstract

This report provides an overview of the status of fishing-related marine plastic litter, focusing specifically on abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG or “ghost gear”) and evaluating its impact and contribution to the broader marine plastic litter issue. In particular, the preparation of this report supports phase I of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) component of the UNJP/GLO/051/IMO project, Activity 1.1.2, under the GloLitter partnership (hereafter “GloLitter”). GloLitter is implemented by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and FAO thanks to initial funding from the Government of Norway via the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). While the quantity of plastic waste from the fishing sector entering the ocean, and in particular ALDFG, is still the subject of conjecture, ALDFG is recognized as the most harmful form of marine litter (Wilcox et al. , 2016) irrespective of whether it has been intentionally discarded or accidentally lost. Focusing on the scientific aspects of the ALDFG problem is part of the mandate for the Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection (GESAMP) Working Group 43 on sea-based sources of marine plastic litter (GESAMP, 2021). In order to determine good practices to prevent, mitigate and remediate ALDFG, it is essential to understand the context of the current situation: this includes the sources, drivers and impacts of ALDFG. Section one of this report therefore provides an overview of ALDFG and its contribution to the broader marine plastic litter issue. Additionally, it summarizes key governance instruments currently in operation to manage and prevent marine plastic litter from fisheries. With this mind, it particularly focus on the two international guidelines that address fishing gear management: the Global Ghost Gear Initiative’s (GGGI) Best Practice Framework for the Management of Fishing Gear for wild capture fisheries (C-BPF), and the FAO Voluntary Guidelines on the Marking of Fishing Gear (VGMFG). Section two presents a series of case studies exemplifying existing good practices to prevent, mitigate or remediate fishing-related marine plastic litter, with a particular focus on ALDFG. As per the GGGI (2021) the categories are defined as: - prevention: avoiding the occurrence of ALDFG in the environment - mitigation: reducing the impact of ALDFG in the environment - remediation: removing ALDFG from the environment. The good practices highlighted provide tried-and-tested measures that can be applied to the design and implementation of viable solution projects in other countries around the world. As well as identifying good practices, section three captures key information gaps, challenges and limitations in addressing ALDFG; these have been informed by the analysis of existing projects and literature review. Based on the case study analysis and the literature review of the broader global context, the final section also offers a series of recommendations that can be incorporated into the development of projects that deal with marine plastic litter from the fishing sector.