On a recent visit to Astola Island in Pakistan, ORP recorded more than 800 green turtle nests on the north beach of the island. Sadly, the beach and surrounding waters were also littered with ghost nets. These ghost nets pose great entanglement risk to nesting mother turtles and hatchlings scrambling to the the sea, something we saw firsthand. Astola Island is Pakistan’s first Marine Protected Area.
Asif Baloch, ORP Field Coordinator in Pakistan, has provided surface support for many scuba diving excursions to remove ghost gear but he had never actually scuba dived before. He recently got PADI certified along with his younger brother, Alam, and ORP Pakistan Project Coordinator, Usman.
ORP has removed tons of ghost gear from areas near Karachi and the fishing village of Abdul Rehman Goth. But now we have a new problem: What to do with 4 tons of ghost nets? Thanks to some creative thinking and innovative collaborations, we are now putting ghost nets to good use in various and surprising fields.
