Healthy Seas facilitates information exchange and cooperation between Greek and Dutch fishery schools in order to achieve higher level of sustainability in the fishing sector.

At the end of September, we organized various meetings and a field trip in the Netherlands with the involvement of Enaleia, the first fisheries schools of Greece established in February 2017, and ProSea Marine Education, an expertise centre in the Netherlands conducting marine awareness and sustainability trainings, also for the fisheries sector.

The fisheries schools in both countries have sustainability high on their agenda and are also incorporating the responsible handling of waste fishing nets, recycling and circular economy in their curriculum. Education and awareness raising activities are key to spread the word about marine litter and the importance of clean and healthy seas.

Many thanks to CIV Den Oever for the cooperation and guiding us around at their premises, which is also the first Healthy Seas collection point established for old fishing nets in Europe.

Healthy Seas is not only focusing on the collection of fishnets and recycling, but trying to achieve more: awareness raising about the problem of marine litter and the possible solutions; developing the right attitude among fishermen and other stakeholders of the fishing industry to become more sustainable in their operations. We aim to engage the fishing industry more and more in the responsible handling of waste fishing nets at the end of their life and eventually closing the loop.

Ghost nets in the seas can continue to create problems not only for marine wildlife but also local communities and fishermen:

  • It places significant costs on them through lost fishing time and damage to active nets.
  • Ghost nets keep fishing uncontrolled and lead to unnecessary catch of fish stocks, so it’s also a loss for fishermen and an economic damage for the fishing industry.
  • It can cause disturbance for the maritime traffic through propeller entanglement.

 

Healthy Seas is working with fishermen while showing that they can be part of the solution and not the problem.

For more information visit:

http://enaleia.com/
http://www.prosea.info/
http://www.civ.nl/