The Green Directory

Carpentaria Ghost Nets Programme ^Featured

Address

PO Box 155, Karumba, QLD, 4891, Australia

Telephone

07 4745 9661

Fax

07 4745 9660

E-mail

Website

http://www.ghostnets.com.au

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The Ghost Net Project is for people from (Indigenous) communities all around the Gulf of Carpentaria to find ways to work together to get rid of marine debris in their sea country, Djawa Yunupingu, Dhimurru Land Management Aboriginal Corporation.

The Carpentaria Ghost Nets Programme is an alliance of 'saltwater people' working together to stop the issue of ghost nets in the Gulf of Carpentaria in Northern Australia. 'Saltwater people' are Indigenous people who have a connection culturally, economically or even aesthetically to the coastal and marine environment.

Ghost nets are fishing nets that have been accidentally lost, deliberately discarded or simply abandoned at sea. They drift with the currents and tides for many years continuing to catch and kill fish and marine wildlife. Floating nets are dangerous to ship navigation, they smother coral reefs and are recognised as one of the main causes of marine turtle mortality. Once in the Gulf, they are trapped in the unusual circular current until they wash ashore during a king tide or storm event.

Indigenous rangers in Northern Territory and Queensland are working together to remove nets from the coast to prevent them from re-entering the ocean. During clean ups, rangers record and release any entangled wildlife and identify the likely source of the net by examining its size, shape, colour and construction. It is not easy work, as most nets are buried in sand, they are very heavy and the locations are very remote and inaccessible.

Data collected by the rangers shows that over 90% of ghost nets come from international waters, particularly SE Asia. Collecting this information about the origins of the nets is important for developing approaches to working internationally to stop the ghost nets at their source.

The Carpentaria Ghost Nets Programme is hosting a competition to design a product reusing ghost nets that Indigenous Communities around the gulf can locally manufacture and sell through Indigenous enterprises.