| Summary: | Abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) represents a consequential amount of marine debris, with serious adverse socioeconomic and environmental impacts to sustainable fisheries and livelihoods, food security and marine ecosystems. Once introduced to the marine environment, ALDFG injures and kills a variety of marine wildlife, results in losses of fishing gear and catch, presents hazards to navigation and safety at sea, damages fragile marine environments, and is expensive and challenging to recover and clean-up. With most modern fishing gear comprised of highly durable and resilient plastic materials, ALDFG can persist in the marine environment for years to decades, exacerbating its potential for prolonged impacts. To inform global ALDFG prevention and reduction efforts, this thesis answers critical questions about total amounts and sources of ALDFG in the world’s oceans and identifies effective ALDFG solutions. The thesis presents estimates for ALDFG that can be used as baselines from which to monitor and measure the effectiveness of ALDFG interventions, and to support targeted development and implementation of solutions at scale. Gear loss causes and drivers are identified, which can be used to aid fishers, managers, policy makers and NGOs with fishing gear risk assessments and to tailor sustainable solutions to prevent and reduce ALDFG at source. A review of historic and ongoing work to prevent and mitigate ALDFG highlights successful interventions available for replication and adaptation. This thesis employs a range of methodologies, which include: examination of efforts by global experts and organizations to build evidence around and combat ALDFG; a comprehensive ALDFG literature review and meta-analysis; and interviews with fishers from seven countries around the world (Belize, Iceland, Indonesia, Morocco, New Zealand, Peru and the United States of America) representing five major fishing gear types (gillnets, purse seine nets, trawl nets, longlines and pots and traps). The thesis ...
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