Marine litter is estimated to have large and wide-ranging impacts on the marine environment. However, few studies have attempted to address the economic costs of marine litter. The few examples that are available tend to address impacts and costs either globally or by economic region. While global commitments are needed to address the marine litter problem, and progress is being made in this regard, mitigation measures will be delivered at the national level.
Abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) is a global problem. Ghost fishing represents one of the main impacts of ALDFG. In addition, ALDFG creates a myriad of environmental and socioeconomic impacts that affects fisheries and other commercial sectors operating in the marine environment, e.g. aquaculture as well as recreational users and land-based sectors e.g. tourism.
In a previous study, we addressed the role of biodegradable fishing gear (BFG) as a mitigation measure to address ALDFG and ghost fishing by developing an economic model to estimate the cost of ghost fishing and the costs and benefits of BFG as a mitigation measure – which was found to be as high as £90,000 at the vessel level in the English Channel Fishery.
In the current study, we adopt the same approach to address the role of BFG in aquaculture, culture based fisheries and the fishing sector in Indonesia, which is estimated to have a large potential to drive the blue economy, but also represents sectors that already generate nearly a million tonnes of plastic waste every year.