Marine plastic pollution is being discussed as one of the three major global crises of climate change, nature loss, and pollution. Although the amount of marine plastic litter entering the sea is relatively smaller than total plastic wastes generated in the globe, it causes various and serious damages in the sea. Many literatures mention that the majority of marine plastic litter comes from land. However, the damage caused by derelict fishing gear from seaborn sources is not negligible but widespread, persistent, and irreversible. Among the derelict fishing gears, gill nets are reported on the seriousness of several literatures. In the case of the Republic of Korea, the fishing nets used by gillnet fishing account for an important portion of the total fishing net use, and the report on the damage to the seabed ecosystem showed that the ghost fishing and the ecosystem damage caused by gillnets were the most serious.
In this study, we directly heard opinions on the causes and countermeasures of gillnet waste from gillnet fishermen in Republic of Korea and collected information on gillnet fishing gear. A total of 61 gillnet fishermen catches 22 different species, including akiami paste shrimp, swimming crab and angler fish. Fishers responded that the causes of derelict gillnets mainly generated due to being lost, followed by abandonment, discarding and others. Gear loss rate was estimated to be 16.9% and it was ca. three times higher than that of global average of gillnets in the recent research. ‘Extreme weather’ did not receive a high score of cause because of the fact that fishers may refrain from deploying their nets in bad weather conditions according to forecasts. In relation to gillnet types, drift nets were found to be longer and heavier on average than the set gillnets and encircling nets.
