Periodic Reporting for period 1 - NETTAGPlus (Preventing, avoiding and mitigating environmental impacts of fishing gears and associated marine litter)
Reporting period: 2023-05-01 to 2024-10-31
NETTAG+ aims to provide a portfolio of three solutions to address the negative impacts of fishing gears on marine life and habitats. NETTAG+ will be based on synergistic activities between the fisheries industry, scientists and NGOs to develop three solutions to PREVENT, AVOID and MITIGATE:
PREVENT – Fishers as Guardians and Cleaners of the Ocean. Empowering the fisheries sector, to improve and/or adopt more environmental-friendly fishing methods, to prevent marine litter and abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gears (ALDFG), and increase responsible user behaviour. This solution will include awareness actions to promote best practices for waste management onboard and also at the fishing ports, and will target not only the litter derived from fisheries activities, but also all the litter passively retrieved by the gears (passively fished).
AVOID – Fishing Gears Location with Acoustic Tags. Upscaling and maturing the acoustic fishing gear localization system using a low-cost tagging system for fishing gear retrieval, maximising cost effectiveness, robustness and suitability for fishing operations.
MITIGATE – Detection and Removal of Abandoned, Lost or otherwise Discarded Fishing Gears (ALDFG) (Map, Track and Recover). This solution will develop robotic tools to improve the detection of ALDFG on a robotic platform.
NETTAG+ aims to upgrade and upscale the integrative preventive approach started in the previous NetTag project, and also replicate it in Mediterranean regions. The three solutions PREVENT, AVOID and MITIGATE will be tested, validated and demonstrated in real conditions in Atlantic and Mediterranean countries, namely: Portugal (PT), United Kingdom (UK), Spain (SP), Italy (IT), Croatia (HR) and Malta (MT).
PREVENT – Fishers as Guardians and Cleaners of the Ocean. Empowering the fisheries sector, to improve and/or adopt more environmental-friendly fishing methods, to prevent marine litter and abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gears (ALDFG), and increase responsible user behaviour. This solution will include awareness actions to promote best practices for waste management onboard and also at the fishing ports, and will target not only the litter derived from fisheries activities, but also all the litter passively retrieved by the gears (passively fished).
AVOID – Fishing Gears Location with Acoustic Tags. Upscaling and maturing the acoustic fishing gear localization system using a low-cost tagging system for fishing gear retrieval, maximising cost effectiveness, robustness and suitability for fishing operations.
MITIGATE – Detection and Removal of Abandoned, Lost or otherwise Discarded Fishing Gears (ALDFG) (Map, Track and Recover). This solution will develop robotic tools to improve the detection of ALDFG on a robotic platform.
NETTAG+ aims to upgrade and upscale the integrative preventive approach started in the previous NetTag project, and also replicate it in Mediterranean regions. The three solutions PREVENT, AVOID and MITIGATE will be tested, validated and demonstrated in real conditions in Atlantic and Mediterranean countries, namely: Portugal (PT), United Kingdom (UK), Spain (SP), Italy (IT), Croatia (HR) and Malta (MT).
NETTAG+ solutions will PREVENT marine litter derived from fisheries activities (onboard and at fishing ports), AVOID loss of fishing gears and consequently prevent and reduce ALDFG, and also MITIGATE harmful impacts of fishing gears by removing existing ALDFG. All the three solutions will jointly contribute to reduce ALDFG and thus minimize marine pollution, namely by: reducing the introduction of hazardous chemicals and microplastics that can be originated by ALDFG; reducing ghost fishing, bycatch and entanglements of sensitive or endangered species on ALDFG; and improving mapping, tracking and recovery technologies to retrieve ALDFG.
NETTAG+ ambition is to change the paradigm of the fisheries industry in the marine litter issues, aspiring to transform societal perspectives about the role of the fisheries sector as Guardians and Cleaners of the Ocean. NETTAG+ will empower the sector to take active collective actions to address marine pollution, promoting their role as key-actors to tackle marine pollution, including ALDFG. NETTAG+ will build on the synergistic activities developed between fishers and scientists in the previous NetTag project and will provide the fisheries industry with three smart and environmental-friendly solutions to reduce ALDFG and prevent the environmental impacts of fishing gears.