Abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear is among the most insidious forms of marine pollution. Once lost, equipment designed for fishing becomes a threat to the very ecosystems it was used in.
Internationally they are known as ALDFG: abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear. The term covers nets, lines, traps, pots, ropes, buoys and other fishing equipment that enters aquatic environments through abandonment, accidental loss or poor management. More commonly, it’s called ghost gear, a name that captures something important about their nature: these are objects no longer under anyone’s control, yet still capable of causing harm.
The problem is not just that they add to the plastic in the sea. It is that they continue to do what they were designed to do. Unlike a bottle or a bag, dispersed fishing gear can go on trapping fish, turtles, marine mammals, seabirds and other organisms indefinitely, a process the technical literature calls ghost fishing. The FAO’s General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean has highlighted this as a defining feature of the problem: abandoned gear can fish continuously, outside any human intention and beyond any normal means of oversight. UNEP has described abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear as among the most lethal forms of marine plastic. The danger is not just the material itself, but its function. A stray net or trap does not simply sit in the water. It catches, entangles, injures and kills, even when it belongs to no one and serves no purpose. This functional persistence is what sets ghost gear apart from other forms of plastic pollution. It is not just a residue. It is still operational.
The materials make things worse. Most modern fishing gear is made from synthetic polymers, strong, light and built to last. These qualities make gear effective to use, but when lost, they are the reason it persists in the environment for a very long time. A lost net can sink to the seabed, snag on reefs and sensitive habitats, shift with currents and storms, gradually fragment and contribute to microplastic pollution. The damage extends far beyond the initial entrapment. It continues as the material slowly breaks down and spreads through the ecosystem.
WWF estimates that fishing gear makes up around 10% of marine litter, with between 500,000 and 1 million tonnes lost or abandoned in the ocean every year. These figures should be treated with some caution. Accurate quantification is difficult and varies by region, fishing type and available monitoring, but the scale is clear enough. This is not an occasional or marginal problem.
There is also an economic and social dimension. Lost gear is a financial cost to fishing communities, a hazard to navigation, and a source of damage to the habitats on which biodiversity, tourism and coastal economies depend. The issue therefore reaches beyond marine conservation into the responsible management of fishing activity, the quality of port infrastructure, cooperation with fishing communities and the development of better systems for recovery, return and tracking.
For all these reasons, solutions go well beyond removal, necessary as that is. The FAO has long recommended the marking of fishing gear as one of the most effective tools for preventing loss, aiding recovery and attributing responsibility along the supply chain. Alongside this, there is a need for tracking systems, port return programmes, recovery incentives, collection of discarded materials, improved infrastructure and the direct involvement of fishing communities themselves. Removal matters. But prevention, traceability and shared responsibility across the supply chain are what will make a lasting difference.