Lost at Sea ?

Multifilament nylon nets are perhaps the most prevalent equipment used by the 15,000 small scale fishers. Though banned by the Senegalese fishing code (article 30), these nets are cast in zones attractive to fish. Unfortunately, when they get caught on rocks or on sea bottoms, they can no longer be used and fishermen are forced to abandon them. Fish caught in them die uselessly, attracting other larger predators that also get trapped. Since we know that these nets take about 400 years to disintegrate completely, we can imagine the consequence of this ecological disaster (loss of fish species and pollution of waters), which might be otherwise avoided.

In April 2O11, our ecopartner Oceanium organized « Lost Nets : A Disaster » a campaign allowing people of good will to dive and retrieve lost and abandoned nylon nets in the Dakar region.

More updates on this campaign coming soon on ecoblog !

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