Ghost nets are fishing nets that have been lost, abandoned, or discarded at sea. They drift with ocean currents, sometimes for years, continuing to catch and kill marine animals long after any fisher intended. In Australian waters, they’re a significant and growing threat to turtles, sharks, dugongs, dolphins, seabirds, and countless fish species. I’ve pulled dead olive ridley turtles from ghost nets in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and it’s one of the most sobering experiences in my career as a marine biologist.

The problem is simultaneously simple and maddeningly complex. Simple because the solution is obvious—get the nets out of the water. Complex because the nets are everywhere, the ocean is enormous, and the nets keep coming.

The Scale

The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that around 640,000 tonnes of fishing gear are lost or abandoned in the world’s oceans every year. Ghost nets make up a significant portion of that total. In Australian waters, the problem is concentrated in the north—the Gulf of Carpentaria, Torres Strait, and the Arafura Sea—where currents carry nets from fishing operations across Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

GhostNets Australia, a program that has been running cleanup operations since 2004, has removed over 17,000 nets from northern Australian coastlines. These aren’t small pieces of netting. Some nets are hundreds of metres long, weighing several tonnes, tangled into massive balls of synthetic rope, netting, and the remains of animals caught over months or years.

The nets that wash up on beaches are the visible portion of the problem. For every net that reaches shore, many more are drifting in open water or sitting on the seafloor, continuing to fish. Estimates of the total quantity of ghost gear in Australian waters are unreliable because most of it is invisible—below the surface, out of sight, silently killing.

What Ghost Nets Do

The mechanism of damage is called “ghost fishing.” A lost net continues to function as a fishing device. Fish swim into it and become entangled. Entangled fish attract predators, which also become entangled. The weight of accumulated catch eventually sinks the net, where bottom-dwelling scavengers feed on the dead organisms. As the catch decomposes, the net refloats and the cycle begins again.

This cycle can continue for years. Modern fishing nets are made from synthetic materials—nylon, polyethylene, polypropylene—that are designed to be durable and resist degradation. A quality fishing net can remain functional in seawater for decades. The very properties that make nets effective fishing tools make them persistent pollutants.

Turtles are particularly vulnerable. Six of the world’s seven marine turtle species occur in Australian waters, and all are affected by ghost nets. Olive ridley turtles, which are the most commonly entangled species in the Gulf of Carpentaria, become trapped when they swim into drifting nets. Once caught, they can’t surface to breathe and drown within hours.

Flatback turtles, which nest exclusively in Australia, are also frequently caught. Monitoring programs on remote northern beaches find dead turtles tangled in ghost net fragments throughout the nesting season. The cumulative impact on populations that are already threatened by habitat loss, climate change, and other pressures is significant.

Dugongs, marine mammals that graze on seagrass in shallow waters, are also victims. Their slow swimming speed and tendency to travel along predictable routes make them vulnerable to fixed ghost nets. Dugong populations in northern Australia are declining, and ghost net entanglement is one of multiple contributing factors.

Where the Nets Come From

This is where the issue gets politically complicated. Most ghost nets in northern Australian waters don’t originate from Australian fishers. Current analysis and net identification studies show that the majority come from fishing operations in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and other countries in the region. They’re carried into Australian waters by monsoon-driven currents.

This doesn’t mean Australian fishing is blameless—Australian commercial and recreational fishers lose gear too—but the predominant source of ghost nets in the areas with the worst impacts is international fishing fleets. Managing the problem requires international cooperation, which is slow and difficult.

The fishing gear in question is often relatively cheap netting used in small-scale artisanal fisheries. Fishers in these operations may lose or abandon nets because retrieval is too dangerous, too expensive, or simply not a priority when nets are cheap to replace. This isn’t carelessness—it’s economics. For a subsistence fisher, the cost of a replacement net is much less than the risk of trying to retrieve one caught on a reef in bad weather.

Cleanup Efforts

On-shore cleanup is the most visible response. Indigenous ranger programs across northern Australia conduct regular beach patrols, removing ghost nets from coastlines before they wash back out. These programs—including Dhimurru, Anindilyakwa, and other Indigenous land and sea management groups—combine traditional knowledge of coastlines and currents with systematic survey methods.

The work is physically demanding. Nets are heavy, often buried in sand, and entangled with vegetation. Removing a large net from a remote beach might require a team working for an entire day, with helicopter support for particularly inaccessible locations. The removed nets then need to be transported to facilities where they can be disposed of or recycled.

At-sea removal is rarer and more expensive. Dedicated vessels with crane equipment can locate and retrieve drifting ghost nets, but covering the vast areas of northern Australian waters is logistically impossible with current resources. Some pilot programs have used satellite imagery and drift modelling to predict where nets will concentrate, allowing targeted retrieval operations.

Prevention and Technology

The more effective long-term solution is preventing nets from becoming ghost gear in the first place. Several approaches are being tested:

Biodegradable nets. Research into fishing nets made from materials that degrade in seawater after a defined period. The challenge is making them durable enough to be effective fishing tools but degradable enough to break down when lost. South Korean researchers have developed prototypes that maintain strength for 1-2 years then progressively weaken.

Net tracking. GPS transponders attached to fishing nets that allow fishers to locate lost gear and retrieve it. Effective but adds cost to each net, which is a barrier for small-scale fisheries.

Buy-back programs. Paying fishers for old or damaged nets rather than letting them discard them at sea. Several programs in Southeast Asia have shown promise, but funding is inconsistent.

Gear marking. Requiring fishing gear to be marked with identifying information, so lost gear can be traced to its source. This enables accountability but requires international agreement and enforcement.

The Recycling Question

What do you do with thousands of tonnes of recovered ghost nets? Landfill is the default, but some programs are exploring recycling. Nylon nets can be recycled into carpet yarn, sportswear fabric, and other products. Econyl, an Italian company, processes old fishing nets into regenerated nylon used by major fashion brands.

In Australia, the Ghostly Creations program works with Indigenous artists to create artworks from ghost net materials, providing both an economic return from cleanup operations and a powerful way to communicate the issue to the public. Ghost net sculptures by artists like Racy Oui-Pitt and Marion Gaemers have been exhibited internationally.

The economics of ghost net recycling don’t work at scale yet—collection and processing costs often exceed the value of recycled material. But as recycling technology improves and raw material prices rise, the equation may shift.

What Individuals Can Do

If you encounter a ghost net on a beach, report it. In Australia, the Tangaroa Blue Foundation maintains a marine debris database where sightings can be logged. Reports help researchers track net distribution and plan cleanup operations.

Support Indigenous ranger programs. They’re doing the bulk of on-ground ghost net removal work and are consistently underfunded relative to the scale of the problem.

If you’re a recreational fisher, maintain your gear, retrieve lost equipment when safely possible, and dispose of old gear properly. Not in the ocean. Not in general waste. Through fishing gear recycling programs where available.

Ghost nets are one of those environmental problems that feels overwhelming in aggregate but is addressable at the individual incident level. Every net removed from the water is a net that won’t kill another turtle. That’s worth the effort.