Water We Doing?

Deep Dive: Joel Baziuk, Deputy Director of the Global Ghost Gear Initiative

March 24, 2021 David Evans / Joel Baziuk Season 1 Episode 2
Water We Doing?
Deep Dive: Joel Baziuk, Deputy Director of the Global Ghost Gear Initiative
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode we speak about ghost fishing, how we can work together to improve fishing gear and how all of us can play a role in cleaning it up with Joel Baziuk, the Deputy Director of the Global Ghost Gear Initiative (GGGI) from the Ocean Conservancy. Joel helps to coordinate global efforts to improve fishing gear to decrease the risks of it being lost at sea and to help coordinate global cleanup efforts.

We talk about what's currently being done, what can be done in the future, how to get involved and what can be made from recycled nets pulled from the sea!

For more information about the Global Ghost Gear Initiative, what they are working on and how you can get involved with their ghost gear reporting app for your phone Click Here.

Check out the Following Brands for cool products made from Ghost Gear!


For more information about the Aquatic Biosphere Project and what we are doing to tell the story of water Click Here.


The Aquatic Bisophere Project
The ABP is establishing a conservation Aquarium in the Prairies to help tell the Story of Water.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

David Evans:

Welcome to today's deep dive episode. Today we're talking with Joel Baziuk, the director of the triple gi the global ghost gear initiative. So today we're going to be learning all about ghost nets, what they are, what they're doing in our world, how we can improve the health of our oceans, and the health of our fishing industries. Also how everyone can be involved. This isn't just for fishermen. This isn't just for policymakers and governments. But everyone can be a part of this. And they have an app, there's a citizen science movement behind them. So I'm just so excited to share this conversation with you. I feel like I learned so much from it. Joel is a great speaker. And the global ghost Care Initiative is doing amazing work and I want to help highlight whatever they are doing. So please follow what they're doing online and sit back relax and get ready to learn more about ghost gear. Water we doing? And how can we do better? your one stop shop for everything water related from discussing water to use and the organisms that depend on it. For all the global issues you really never knew all had to do with water. I'm your host, David Evans from the aquatic biosphere project. And I just want to ask you something. What are we doing? How can we do better? Welcome to today's deep dive episode. Today I'm joined by Joel Baziuk from the global ghost gear initiative. Joel, do you mind just introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about what you do? Great. Thanks

Joel Baziuk, Global Ghost Gear Institute:

so much for having us on the show. David, I really appreciate it. My name is Joel Baziuk. I'm the Deputy Director for the global ghost gear initiative, which we'll call the triple gi I think to make it a little bit more palatable. And yeah, so the triple gi is the largest collective impact alliance in the world dedicated solely to solving the problem of lost and abandoned fishing gear around the world. That's basically it in a nutshell, we've got 115 different member organizations from around the world ranging from very, very small NGOs, boots on the ground, all the way up to massive global corporates and everyone in between. So it's really about bringing all these different stakeholders, whether they're small NGOs, large NGOs, governments, academia, corporates, fishing industry, bringing everyone around the same table to talk about how we can solve this problem in a holistic and lasting way. That's really what we're all about.

David Evans:

Wow, that's pretty incredible. Just having that many, that kind of a scope of being able to reach across lines that are usually really divided, like academia versus the actual fishing industry. That must be a pretty difficult Alliance to form I guess, at times, or is it a bit easier than I'm assuming

Joel Baziuk, Global Ghost Gear Institute:

it is not easier than you were assuming? Definitely, there are different perspectives, but we really do feel that bringing everyone together around the same table and what we call a safe space to have a conversation about this. Even if not everyone takes the same approach. It's a it's an issue that affects us all for different reasons. And it's in everybody's best interest to try to solve it at the root and as well as to do you know as much of the cleanup as we can so there is a little bit of plate spinning from time to time, but really everybody that's been part of the initiative from the get go has had that collaborative spirit in play. And it's it's one of the things I think that makes this this platform really special.

David Evans:

Well, it's great to hear that collaboration can actually happen in a space such as this space. Can you can you start off I guess with explaining what makes a ghost, a ghost net or ghost gear, ghost gear?

Joel Baziuk, Global Ghost Gear Institute:

Yeah, no, that's a really good question. I think, you know, we refer to it that the technical term is abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear or ALDFG. And again, it to make it a little bit more palatable. It's sort of had the colloquialism ghost gear take take shape. And what it means is basically any fishing gear that has become lost once it's once it's been deployed. So basically any fishing gear that's out there that is no longer under human control. So whether it breaks loose because of bad weather or separates from its buoy and becomes lost that way, or whether it gets snagged on something beneath the surface, or whether marine traffic, you know, unintentionally drives over it, not realizing that it's there and what those boys are for, and cuts it loose, once it becomes loose in the ocean and not under human control anymore, it still has a tendency to continue to fish and it doesn't only fish target species, it can fish anything indiscriminately. So it has an impact on fish populations, which also links to human health and livelihoods and, you know, global food security, but it can also fish other target non target species too. So things like, you know, turtles and, you know, other cetaceans and marine mammals, seals, sea lions, all of those different things are all at risk, depending on the gear type, of course. But really, that's what it is, is once it becomes loose, it can continue to drift. Or it can, if it's heavy gear, it can smother reefs and other coastal vehicles, or sorry, aquatic ecosystems, not only just a problem on the coast, so that's really what we're talking about is any fear, any fishing gear that has become separated from its Morrigan is no longer under human control.

David Evans:

Yeah, being able to just fish for absolutely anything out there. That's a scary, scary proposition.

Joel Baziuk, Global Ghost Gear Institute:

Yeah, it certainly isn't. I think again, that's, that's why they think the colloquialism of ghost gear stuck. Kind of has a bit of a negative connotation. It's not a fun thing that's happening out there. But again, we want we want to emphasize that we work very closely with fishers on the ground, and the fishing industry to try to find solutions to this problem, because it's, it's a problem for them to know Fisher ever wants to lose their gear, aside from the fact that it's expensive, and it costs them money when they lose gear. It does

David Evans:

not bring that up.

Joel Baziuk, Global Ghost Gear Institute:

Yeah, absolutely. And it does have an impact on their that you know, the fish stocks that they're harvesting in order to feed the world, I mean, 3 billion people in the world rely on seafood as their primary source of protein. So I think we need to keep that in mind as well as that, that no Fisher ever wants to lose their gear. And this is one of the reasons that we work so closely with the industry to come up with solutions that make sense for them as well. Because at the end of the day, it's in everybody's best interest to to try to find holistic solutions to this challenge.

David Evans:

Yeah, that makes sense. If I'm a fisherman, I want to maintain those fish stocks so that I have something to fish for in the future. It's just self preservation. Can you explain a guess a bit about how these ghost gear get lost in the first place? So how do you lose a gear? Is it storms? Is it people throwing nets overboard?

Joel Baziuk, Global Ghost Gear Institute:

Yeah, I mean, typically, when we first hear about or the typical, there's a there's a tendency to think that fishers are just throwing nets over the side of their boat as a means of disposal. Usually, this is by and large, not the case, not saying it doesn't happen, because it does. But there are usually conditions that lead to that, which I'll get into in a minute. Most of of gear loss is caused by things like bad weather. So if you have a fish, or a crab trap, for example, which is sitting on the bottom of the ocean, and it has the length of line going up to the surface with a buoy on the top of it, if there's really rough weather that comes through, it can actually snap that rope, separate it from the buoy, which means the trap is still down there, and there's no real way to locate it anymore. So just as one example, same thing can happen to a net if it's deployed, or if it gets snagged on the surface of or sorry, snagged on something beneath the surface, whether that's a rock, or a wreck, or reef, if it gets caught on that, especially if there's a combination of that and rough weather, fishers sometimes need to cut that loose for safety reasons, because if they're caught in a beam, see in rough weather, and their net is snagged on something that can easily totally rollover. So these are the main causes. And when I said marine traffic, sometimes you know when a fisher will deploy a net if there's either a large cargo ship that's unable to avoid it. And so it doesn't even see it if we're talking about those massive container ships, or even just regular boaters who are out there, you know, on a Sunday cruise and don't realize that that that buoy means that there's a fishing line, or a sorry, a rope between that buoy and wherever the other buoy is, they could drive over that and cut it with their propeller and not even realize it and those are sort of the primary reasons that gear gets lost. And again, no Fisher ever wants to have that happen. So there's an incentive for the fishing industry to to come up with with ways to try to solve this problem as well. And sometimes it's just geospatial planning, right. So to use layman's terms, not setting nets in, in these high traffic areas, or making sure communication with some of these, you know, if you're sitting near a container facility or something like that, because that's where the fish happened to be that there's some communication between those different organizations and those different users of the water to make sure that There's an understanding that there's net in the area, and that that's what these buoys mean. So some of it's just education and, and communication.

David Evans:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Sometimes it just not talking to each other really gets us in a big pickle.

Joel Baziuk, Global Ghost Gear Institute:

Absolutely. And I mean, there, there have been challenges as well, where, you know, in the past, there's been a lot of this has been to give a Canadian example on the west coast of British Columbia, where prior to like the 1990s, and that, that's a little bit of a generalization, but there was a more of a The, the fishing is open, so you can go out and catch as many fish as you can and bring it back in. And that's sort of developed into a almost a free for all, because obviously the best Fisher's knew the best fishing spots. And they kept that information pretty tightly guarded be for for obvious reasons, because they're going to make you have the most money by catching the most fish. And there were no limits, you could bring in as much as you could catch you while the fishing was open. And then we moved to a quota system later on. And what that meant is that every fishery could only bring back a certain amount of fish anyway. And so that that helped cut back on the amount of times where you would have fishers maybe setting in front of another Fisher who has already deployed to catch fishing in a high in a good area, because there's only so much you can bring back. So it also led to fewer nets going out because they were stacking quota on a single vessel, which means that instead of five vessels, each able to catch a certain amount of fish going out, you would have all five of the vessels quota stacked on one, one vessel goes out fishes for all five of them and for net stay at home. So those types of manage fisheries management decisions have cut back on some of the some of the other causes of gear like fishers deploying too close to each other for for example, things like that, that we may have seen in the past, but some of the a lot of that gear is still out there. So that legacy gear is still having an impact to this day. Yeah, exactly.

David Evans:

Well, that's, that's a really interesting angle, from the policy point of view on how you can how you can have a big time impact on an issue like this. I'm interested, I guess in Are there other opportunities with individual nets, maybe with technology advancing with GPS technology? Is that being utilized on a more granular scale? Or is it just such a huge volume operation that really the policy options our best foot forward?

Joel Baziuk, Global Ghost Gear Institute:

I mean, yeah, honestly, it's a very complex space. So there are no simple answers, but to try to drill it down. I mean, there are some fisheries that are that are well managed to the point of really being showcases Norway as a really good example of that, where the Norwegian government knows where every bit of fishing gear is, and it's all tagged, it's all geo located with acoustic pingers a lot of the time. So when their enforcement and their fisheries agencies are driving around, they know it, they can ping, they know whose gear it is, they know where it was deployed, when it was deployed. It's pretty, it's pretty amazing stuff. What you can do impressive these days, it's Yeah, and there was some pushback from the fishing industry, at first, understandably so. But over the over time, where this has just become the new normal, it just makes sense. And, and everybody, you know, be there's no real problem with illegal fishing, the way that there might have been in the past, because everything that's out there is is easily identifiable. So it makes it makes life very easy. Now in terms of, not everyone's as advanced when it comes to their, their, their policies and their management systems is normally and that's a relatively new invention that's not like has been like that for forever. But there definitely are a way there. There's also other technologies that that individual fishers can use. And these are some of the texts that we're testing in various regions like the Caribbean, and in the South Pacific, where there are GPS buoys that can alert a fisher. First of all, they can let them know when, or sorry, where that gear is at all times. And it's connected to an app and a GPS network. So they can look on their phone and find out where their net is exactly, or their deployed gear, whatever it happens to be. What's it's really, really amazing that they're able to do that these days. But even certain certain technology like blue ocean gear, for example, out of California, one of our triple gi members, has a boy that can actually tell has sensors in it similar to what you'd find in your mobile phone. So you can tell what orientation it's facing and all the rest of it. So you can actually distinguish between gear that just breaks loose, and gear that gets in caught by a whale or some other interaction. So those different sensors in there can actually send an alert to let people know hey, there's been a whale interaction or some other marine mammal interaction with the gear. So all that is to say that there's there's a lot of this coming out on the horizon. We're testing this in some of our projects around the world. But the tech side of thing is really, really interesting.

David Evans:

Wow, that's incredible. I guess just To get an idea of the sense of scale, so how big of a problem is band in fishing gear globally? And where are the hotspots? Where is most of this gear actually lost?

Joel Baziuk, Global Ghost Gear Institute:

That is an excellent question. And that is something that the triple gi is trying to contribute to finding the answer to. So the number that most people will point to, when talking about this is 640,000 tons of gear lost every year. Now, that number seems it's a big number. It, it's, it's the proximately, the equivalent of the mass of twice the Empire State Building, to give us an idea of what that's like. But that number comes from a United Nations report from 2009. And that's quite, you know, that's a decade old. And it was an It was a best guess, on the part of the authors at the time, because not a lot of information had come across. It's actually they thought that maybe 10% of the debris that was out there last every year, which was then accepted to be about 6.4 million tonnes a year. So maybe 10% of it, which is where that number comes from, was fishing gear, but it was a guess. And that number, actually, interestingly, the 6.4 million tonnes comes from the late 1970s. So there's a lot of data that needs to be gathered and a lot more research that needs to be done to really say how much it is. But recent studies, one on the Great Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or the North Pacific gyre showed that 46% of what was there by weight was lost fishing gear. Of course, that happened to be one giant piece ball of it, but at the same time, that's it's pretty significant. Another study found that 70% by weight of the floating macro plastics are the pieces that are bigger than a couple of millimeters. In various spot checks from around the world was found to be lost fishing gear, so things like boys nets, lines, cable, those types of things. So all types of gear, not just nets exclusively. But anyway, we're talking about significant numbers. And that's only the surface stuff that's not taking into consideration what's actually been snagged under underwater. So all that is to say it's a lot, it's a big problem. Gear loss occurs wherever there's fishing, for all the reasons we talked about before. So we're really trying to build this database of evidence with data contributors from all over the world. And we actually have a data portal and online resource that we're building right now and rolling out the second version of in January of 2021, that people will be able to submit data to view the data interact with that data, and see what it looks like. But it all that is to say the short version is we don't know exactly. We know it's a big problem. And we're working towards trying to find what that number actually is.

David Evans:

That is astounding, first of all. Secondly, it's a really interesting point that you brought up that how significant amount of fishing gear actually takes up with the global plastics issue in our oceans. Because typically, you hear more about just water bottles that are thrown away. And that kind of gets the headlines of the news. But it's true, you typically do see these floating mats with pieces of fishing gear, and I just never put those two together is that being that much of a significant factor?

Joel Baziuk, Global Ghost Gear Institute:

Yeah, and I mean, everyone these days, you'd have to be living under a rock, I think to to not, at least have heard about the marine debris problem writ large. So things like water bottles, and balloons and plastic bags and utensils and all those things that you know, people are finding on the beach. And those are, you know, some of them some of the most common items found by the International Coastal Cleanup, for example, another one of ocean Conservancy's programs sitting alongside the triple gi. And all of those have their impacts. And people I think people have an experiential link with that, because whenever you walk on a beach, you're probably going to find one of those items, no matter where you are, so people can see it, and they know it. But fishing gear doesn't tend to wash up as as frequently and well, in certain areas of the world. That is absolutely not true. It actually does that quite frequently. But looking at the west coast of British Columbia, for example, because that's where we happen to be talking about or that's where I happen to be speaking from right now. You don't see fishing gear, washing up the same way that you see plastic bottles and styrofoam and things like yeah, so there isn't that link that people have seen it and a lot of it's subsurface and a lot of people just just haven't seen that. So there's so there's a lot of lack of awareness about that. I think that's one of the main reasons why

David Evans:

that's really interesting. So I know you're involved with coordinating ghost gear cleanups all around the world. What happens with all of this gear once it's removed from the ocean is Is it able to be repurposed? Or does it go straight to a landfill?

Joel Baziuk, Global Ghost Gear Institute:

Yeah, it's, that's a really interesting question. It, the Google ghost gear initiative for the triple gi ourselves, we a lot of the projects that we'll do will involve our triple gi members who are doing this work on the ground. So we're sort of an umbrella that coordinates a lot of that work around the world, even though the expertise of the individual members is is leveraged for those different projects, depending on where we are and what we're trying to do when it comes to removal. And what happens with that gear. It really depends, it depends on a few different things. So a lot of that gear can be recycled, a lot of it has a high commercial value if it's made of something like nylon, other materials like polyethylene polypropylene, less commercially viable, but they still can be recycled. The main challenge I think, when trying to recycle recovered gear, well, there's two things one, it's very expensive. So you know, you need to pay divers and boats and heavy equipment to first of all located and then pull it out of the water. So it's it's expensive to remove gear, and it tends to be covered in depending on how long it's been down there. You know, contaminants that you would need to get rid of before you were able to recycle it, for example. So whether that's algae, or sand or any type of things that you need to clean it quite well before it can be recycled. That said, it is possible to do it. There's also logistics and transportation, all those different things you need to keep in mind because you know recycling gear at the end of its life, you need to get it from where it is to where recycler can handle it. And generally speaking nets are designed to entangle things and they do the same thing when you put them through, you know, gear, or equipment that is designed to recycle. So a lot oftentimes needs to be shredded before it can be processed. So that I won't go into too much of the technical detail all it is to say that it can be recycled. But you also need to find a recycler, who's capable of handling that material and they need to be close enough to the point of where it was removed for that to be viable. And sometimes that's just not the case. So sometimes it does just get landfilled, sometimes it gets incinerated, depending on where on where in the world we're talking about and what the what the options might be. Our preference, obviously, is to have it recycled as much as possible, or as you pointed out, reused. And that happens a lot. A lot more than people I think, realize there's a program that I actually started when I was working for Stevenson Harbor, just out of Richmond here in British Columbia. And that program is still going and a lot of a lot of the material that can't be recycled through that program is reused by other fishers. So whether that's cork line, or lead line or other ropes, whatever it is, a lot of that material that can't be readily recycled is simply reused. So that's, that's another great point to bring up.

David Evans:

Well, that's, that's, uh, that's music to my ears. That's great to know that once I mean, it is a huge task to go out and get this equipment back. But it, it can have another life, it doesn't just go straight to a landfill. It's it can be repurposed in some form or recycled. So yeah, but it's still a huge amount of gear. So yeah, that's a that's a lot. I was just wondering if you could if you could talk a bit more about the GGG. Ai, and how it got started and what its role is moving forward?

Joel Baziuk, Global Ghost Gear Institute:

Yeah, for sure. So the Triple J was initially started back in 2015, as a way to bring all of these different stakeholder groups together to talk about how to solve this problem was actually initially started by World animal protection in 2015. And they realized very quickly that this is a much more complicated issue than it seems on the surface, because it links to so many things that are not just animal welfare oriented, which is what obviously world animal protection is all about, you know, looking at seals and turtles and things getting caught in nets. It's about things like marine debris, as we've talked about already on the show, linked to microplastic. And which also linked to human health and consumption, to global food security, to the health of coastal economies, even to climate change. And no one's gonna claim here that that loss of gear causes climate change. But when you start seeing climate change and increased storm systems moving through that that is causing more gear loss and so they realized that this is probably something that's outside the scope of what they would normally do. So they right from the very beginning rather than drop the program, they decided to incubate it for three years and find another host organization to take it forward in the long term whose whose goal is to do more ocean related work and and as of January of 2019, that organization is Ocean Conservancy. Who is the host organization for the triple gi right now. And so they're the ones who are really guiding it and leading it and driving it forward, providing the resources to keep it going that type of thing. So the, the triple gi sits alongside or under the Ocean Conservancy trash free seas program. So some people might be familiar with things like the international Coastal Cleanup, which I mentioned, or the trash free seas Alliance and the global ghost gear initiative sits in parallel alongside those other programs under the Ocean Conservancy umbrella.

David Evans:

Alright, listeners, you have something else to Google Now check out all those awesome initiatives. Now, the triple gi is starting to work with a lot of different countries to try to implement things on a national and international scale. So which countries have joined so far? Um,

Joel Baziuk, Global Ghost Gear Institute:

yeah, right now we're about 17. national governments that are supporting Wow, the triple gi. Yeah, it's, it's, it's been quite a process to get there. But again, it only launched at the end of 2015. So yeah, that's incredible. Yeah, the amount of progress that has been seen on this issue in that short amount of time is, is pretty significant. So and we have, just like our member organizations, our member governments vary in size. So we have, you know, large organizations like the United States, which recently joined just this past summer. and Canada, which joined at the end of 2019, the United Kingdom. But we also have smaller organizations that are seeing this as a challenge for them in a much more salient, or I should even say much more, but in a very salient way. So we're going to, or sorry, governments like Palau, and Samoa and Vanuatu and some of these remote island nations that that really do see this as a challenge in there every day, we're among the first to sign on to the initiative. And it's really, again, just just like the membership, we in terms of organizations, with governments, it's it's all shapes and sizes, it's everybody has a part to play. And we're we're sort of the organization that convenes all of these different actors together to make sure that there's a dedicated action on the issue dedicated in coordinated action.

David Evans:

Well, that's, that's a very short timeframe to get that many groups, that many ducks in a row. I was wondering if you could speak a bit about how you got involved with the triple gi. What and I think you already mentioned an organization that you began and is still running now, just out of Richmond, but maybe maybe there's more to that story as well.

Joel Baziuk, Global Ghost Gear Institute:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, interestingly enough, my degrees in history, I've no idea. Ya know, I graduated from UBC with a degree in history. And while I was putting myself through university, I was working for Stevenson harbor authority, which is Canada's largest commercial fishing harbor based out of Richmond, BC, as I mentioned, and when I graduated, you know, I was offered a supervisory role for their operations. And I thought, well, I'll take this for a while. And that turned into 14 years. So I was actually with the organization for two decades, by the time by the time I pivoted my career path to follow this, but yeah, really, while I was there, and I mentioned I was there for two decades. And for 15 of those 20 years, I didn't realize that Lawson bending gear was was a thing I, I was working directly in the fishing industry and still didn't have any idea. It wasn't until I started to see, as I mentioned, there was a move to a quota system, and you'd have one or two boats going out with, you know, a bunch of different quota stacked on them. So instead of five boats going out, you have one boat going out, and four nets being left behind. And so those nets just were left behind not being used for fishing anymore. They were reached, they were out there at the end of their life, I could pull them apart with my hands because the UV from the sun had damaged them so they could never be used for fishing again. And our only options were to either have them buried in a landfill or incinerated. And I thought there's got to be a better way to do this. So I started looking around and I, I found a project called networks out of the Philippines, which was a combination project between the Zoological Society of London or XSL interface, which is a carpet tile manufacturer and Aqua fill, which is the recycling company who was involved. And they were doing that collection with local fishers in the Philippines. And that's really what inspired the program here. And I thought, well, if they can do it there, there's got to be a way so I managed to get in touch with Aquafina. And after about a year or so, got the recycling project and Steve's been off the ground and running and over the next few years, we recycled about 180,000 kilograms of nets

David Evans:

through the NGO 90,000. Wow.

Joel Baziuk, Global Ghost Gear Institute:

Yeah, yeah, I mean, drop in the bucket in terms of the amount of gear that's out there, but a pretty substantial volume to have done out of one harbor. So we were We were pretty proud of that. And it was actually through that engagement. And, of course, it wasn't just me, I created the program, and I sort of steward it long. But there were a lot of others involved in the logistics and moving the Nets around and stripping them, you know, local Fishers and staff from Stevenson harbor all made that possible. And that program is still running, they've actually expanded it a little bit since I was there. Which is really, really great to see. And through that program in 2014, when I first launched it, the global ghost gear initiative, or actually, world animal protection at the time, got in touch with me and talked about this initiative, they were going to launch and wanting to know if I would come out and sort of give a presentation or a talk at their first meeting in London, and September of 2015. And so that was what sort of started me down the path and gave a presentation there joined a working group. And then the next year, I was a member of the steering group, and then I was fortunate enough to be able to decide that this is where I'd really like to spend my time and how I'd like to contribute and was able to get a position within the triple gi and have never looked back.

David Evans:

That's awesome. That's a that's quite the story. And that's, that's incredible, that they're still running and they're expanding. Yeah, that's awesome. For many listeners, we may not live near coastal area, we may not fishing may not be a part of our daily lives or anything like that. So as someone who lives in a landlocked province, such as Alberta, how would I be able to help with this? How would I be able to bring awareness? Or is anything to this? Because this is an issue that I feel passionate about? Are there choices that I can make when I go into a store? What could I do from from here,

Joel Baziuk, Global Ghost Gear Institute:

ya know, that that makes a lot of sense. I mean, if you're a consumer of seafood, then you can make educated choices all the time. And that's one thing that we would, we would recommend, if you're, you know, in a quote, unquote, landlocked region, you can certainly make those choices and whether that's, you know, certification from some of the bodies, like friend of the sea, or here in Canada, ocean wise, or the Marine Stewardship Council, you can make those more sustainable choices. You know, it's not always the be all end all, but it's definitely a better choice that you can make doing that. And also, some of our some of our corporate members do have, you know, commitments to address this in their supply chains. And that's one of the things that we, one of the points of pride that we take with a lot of our corporate members, whether they're from the seafood industry, or whether they're retailers from around the world is, you know, providing them the tools to ensure that a lot of these best practices that we recommend, are taken into account in those at those global supply chains. So, you know, having a look at our membership list and seeing, you know, what are those retailers or what are those seafood company is doing to address the issue. And that's, that's one way to do it. But another more interesting thing that I'd like to rush into the morning, but another interesting thing that I'd like to talk about is, you know, you mentioned Alberta being a mostly landlocked province. If you travel far, far, far north and well, foreign, foreign out, you're gonna find a pretty substantial body of water. But the point is that it's not all about the marine environment, right? So just because Alberta might not touch the ocean, like bc does. There's still rivers, and there are still lakes where fishing, both commercial and recreational takes place. And that were, like I said earlier, wherever fishing takes place, there is going to be some element of gear loss, if anyone's been angling the, you're going to lose line here and there. And that's all part of the part of the issue as well. So you know, raising awareness through there, there's actually a really good program out of the United Kingdom, the anglers national line recycling scheme, run through one of our triple gy members out of the UK called local independency anglers. And basically this is a recycling scheme for people to be able to drop off their end of life or recovered fishing line at the end of its life and have it recycled in new products. So there's, there's always a way and there's always an angle, that people might be able to get involved in just again, emphasizing that it's not only a marine issue, wherever there's freshwater fresh lakes for fishing takes place, there will be some element of gear loss and, and those who want to contribute directly, if you will, do find yourself fishing in a river or a lake, or the ocean, of course, you can always download our triple gi ghost gear reporter app, which is freely available on both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store. And you can report gear last year as you find it to our global data portal directly through the app. It's a very simple touchscreen interface. Lots of images. It's available in seven different languages right now with more by the end of the year. And again, you will find gear if you look for it near a body of water. There's always going to be something nearby if there if there's if there's fishing activity somewhere.

David Evans:

Yeah, that's very true. That's a great way to To be able to add to your database of this stuff. I know for one thing with our organization, the aquatic biosphere project, we have taken part with a lot of Lake cleanups and have our our divers go down to the bottom of lakes and we've retrieved snowmobiles, some fishing equipment, surprising amount of TNT, actually, recently, people I guess, trying different ways to get through the ice for fishing I am, we're definitely gonna have to take a look at that ttti app. And I'd encourage all the listeners to download it and try it out for yourselves and see if you can add to this great initiative, where can listeners find out more about this project, this initiative? And how can they support you? Are there social media channels or your website that you'd like to direct them to? Yeah, absolutely.

Joel Baziuk, Global Ghost Gear Institute:

Thanks for that. So our website is www.ghostgear.org. Where you can learn more about our members, the projects that we do, there's some useful resources that we have as well, if you're, if you're interested in the issue. And you're in either a coastal region or not, there's, you know, documents on how to locate gear and our annual reports and all kinds of of information there a map of our projects, that kind of thing. You can also visit the Ocean Conservancy websites, oceanconservancy.org, where, again, our host organization where you can learn more about the trash free seas program and the other programs under the Ocean Conservancy umbrella, you can follow us on Twitter at at Triple GI initiative. And, and follow a lot of what we're doing there. And I think we're also on LinkedIn, as well under global ghost gear initiative. So all sorts of ways to follow us. And you can also sign up for our newsletter on our website, if you'd like to sort of keep an eye on not only what the triple gi is doing, but also what what some of our member organizations are doing some of the great work they're doing around the world. there's a there's a link to that on our website, Ghostgear.org.

David Evans:

Perfect, thank you so much for taking the time out of your day, Joel, to chat with us. And I'm sure we'll get some listeners onto that app and giving you guys some more data at some point soon.

Joel Baziuk, Global Ghost Gear Institute:

It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me, David.

David Evans:

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe. I'll leave links in the show notes to go right to the global ghost gear initiative website. And so you can find out who all the partners are, what the most recent countries that signed on, and what you can do to help support them with their app. So download their app, I'll leave a link for that too. Super cool. Very excited about it. Also, in the show notes, I'll leave some links to some of the repurpose gear that's built from old fishing gear. So definitely check out those cool companies as well. Thanks so much to Joel for taking time out of his busy day to speak with me for this podcast. I really appreciate it and all of the work that the triple gi does keep up the awesome work. And that's our show for today. Thank you so much for listening, please subscribe so you don't miss any of our future episodes coming out. Leave us a rating and review. It means so much to us to hear back from all of our listeners. I'm the host and producer David Evans. And I would just like to thank the rest of the team from the aquatic biosphere project, specifically to Paula Polman, Sophie Cervera, and aAnna Bettini. Thanks for all of your help to learn more about the aquatic biosphere project and what we're doing here in Alberta telling the story of water. Check us out at aquaticbiosphere.ca. And if you have any questions or comments about the show, we'd love to hear them. Email us at conservation at aquatic biosphere.org. Please don't forget to like, subscribe and leave us a review. It really helps us out get excited for next Monday when we release our next storytelling episode all about seawater desalination. We talked to Heather Cooley from the Pacific Institute about water stress. How many cities across the world are actually about to run out of water, and how seawater desalination might be able to help. And don't forget we have our next deep dive episode with the Emerald sea protection society coming up tomorrow. Get ready to hear ore from Ally and Bourton about hat they're doing to clean up he coast of Vancouver Island. hanks for listening to the ater we doing podcast and until ext time, it's been a splash