Discarded fishing gear is endangering wildlife in the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Bay between India and Sri Lanka—now researchers are talking to fishers to find out what can be done.
There are thought to be more than 4,000 species (including corals, seagrasses, mangroves and reef fish) in this 12,000 square kilometer protected area, located between the northwestern and northern coasts of Sri Lanka and the Southeastern coast of India.
Hafsa Jamel, Programme Manager, Lanka Environment Fund says that marine litter from fisheries represent a major threat to marine environments in the Gulf of Mannar and the southern part of Palk Bay and is expected to keep getting more severe.
“Abandoned, lost and otherwise discarded fishing gear or ALDFG, is a persistent problem for a country with a reliance on its coastal fisheries for protein and its seafood industry,” they say, adding that there areas are important breeding and fishing ground for species including marine turtles and the dugong.
The researchers collected and analysed marine litter from 12 locations in India and five in Sri Lanka, as well as interviewing 343 Indian and 125 Sri Lankan fishermen in the area to understand their perceptions about marine litter.
They found that abandoned or otherwise discarded fishing gear made up half of litter items and nearly three-quarters of total litter weight on Indian shores, and 41% of items and 40% of the weight on Sri Lankan shores.
“Sri Lanka also faces increasing challenges with transboundary litter due to our unique ocean current patterns that place us in the top 15 countries in the world most affected by beaching plastics,” Jamel says.
In Sri Lanka, fishers blamed inclement weather as the leading cause for gear loss, whereas “bottom snagging” was the main cause credited by fishers in India.
Fishers in India and Sri Lanka told the researchers that designated locations to dispose of used gear are lacking and that the issue of discarded fishing gear was not often talked about, but they are largely positive about supporting a system that would collect old fishing gear.
Growing up in Sri Lanka
Jamel grew up in the towns of Pellawatte and Battaramulla in Sri Lanka, where their childhood spent predominantly outdoors led them to test their theories about nature.
“My parents then, after hearing me out, would guide me to learning resources that would either debunk or validate my train of thought,” they say.
While studying their undergraduate degree in international development through the University of London, and shortly after, they had the opportunity to learn under mentors who taught them the importance of representation and sensitivity in the field of development and conservation.
“To truly understand our challenges in Sri Lanka, is to understand our gripping history, stunning landscapes and diverse communities,” Jamel says, “It’s important to leverage opportunities for locals for the simple reason that the challenges we face are our lived experiences, such as managing expectations with bureaucracy, navigating culture and even working around poya days!”
They say that it is important to recognize our privileges at all levels of the social strata, “which feed back into the nuances that differ from community to community, and province to province.”
Plastic Problems in Principe
On the other side of the world, another team from an island is tracking plastic pollution to save turtles: conservationists in Sao Tomé & Principe, a tiny, biodiverse African island nation are using “GPS in a bottle” to track the plastic pollution that plagues their shores.
The researchers, in partnership with the Portuguese Navy, have launched ten bottles with GPS at different points in Atlantic Coast of West Africa, gathering data on the movements and aggregation of surface plastics in and around the Gulf of Guinea.
“Despite our local efforts plastic from elsewhere is washed ashore daily: we find turtles with their system full of plastic every season and 25% of the videos collected from the 10 turtles we video-tagged showed plastic in the vital habitat of Principe’s coastal waters,” Estrela Matilde, past executive director of Fundação Príncipe says.
Litoney Matos, director of Fundação Príncipe explains that the NGO hopes to continue to influence all the local, national and international stakeholders to protect the unique biodiversity of the island.
