awareness of ghost fishing and solicits donations and
grants to support the group’s continuing operations.
Fundraising has proved difficult. Government agencies
are broke, and businesses are concerned about liability;
removing ghost nets is extremely hazardous and borders
on being considered commercial diving. As a result,
Hamza’s volunteers, who are trained deep divers from
the local GUE chapters in Los Angeles and San Diego,
typically split the $3,000-$5,000 cost of the charter boat
and diving gases (helium and decompression mixes) on
a sliding scale. Tech divers pay up to $400-$500 per trip,
while nondiving topside team members each contribute
$25 or more in donations.
However, Hamza is now working with the Animal
Rights Advocacy Museum in Pasadena, Calif., to
set up a ghost-fishing display and host a fundraiser.
She is also looking into
recycling ghost nets to
help defer costs. To this
end, Hamza has begun
talks with the Aquafil
Group
.
com), an Italian nylon
polymer manufacturer
with a processing plant
in Georgia, to recycle the
recovered fishing nets
into yarns, carpeting and
plastics as part of Aquafil’s “Healthy Seas Initiative”
(
.
Hamza’s long-term goal? To spur lawmakers to
create state and federal legislation requiring fisherman
to report gear losses when they occur (and are easier
to remove) and share in the cost of cleanup. But
ocean-conscious consumers have a role to play as well.
“I’d be remiss not to talk about food choices when
talking about ghost fishing,” said Hamza, a committed
vegan and proponent of a plant-based diet. “Ghost
nets are strictly a consumer-driven problem.”
— Michael Menduno
|
25
JOAKIM HJELM
JEFF CAMPBELL
