Removing derelict fishing gear from the deep seabed of the East Sea

Dong-Oh Cho

Marine Policy, 2011, vol. 35, issue 5, 610-614

Abstract: The East Sea, with an average depth of 1700 m, has long been subject to heavy fishing pressure, resulting in derelict fishing gear. Most derelict fishing gears, such as fishing nets, fishing ropes, and crab pots, sink to the seabed and do not degrade. This gear results in "ghost fishing," which has adverse impacts on deep benthic habitats. Recently, the Korean government has started to remove derelict fishing gears from the deep seabed of the East Sea by bottom trawling with heavy hooks (50-80 kg) and ropes. A total of 207.8 and 252.2 tons of marine debris in 2009 and 2010, respectively, were removed from the seabed, most of which were derelict fishing gears. Contrary to monitoring surveys and clean-up in shallow waters, removal of marine debris from remote deep habitats is much more difficult and dangerous for removal crews.

Keywords: Derelict; fishing; gear; Bottom; trawling; East; Sea; Deep; seabed; Hooks; and; ropes; Fishing; grounds (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308-597X(11)00023-6
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:marpol:v:35:y:2011:i:5:p:610-614

Access Statistics for this article

Marine Policy is currently edited by Eddie Brown

More articles in Marine Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().