Ghost gear recovered from Arctic waters around Ilulissat, Greenland, including live snow crabs and fish. Abandoned nets and lines continue to harm marine ecosystems long after they are lost. Photo credit: Ilulissani Aalisartut Piniartullu Peqatigiiffiat (IAPP)
Connected efforts, lasting solutions
Ghost gear in Greenland
Below the ocean surface, discarded fishing equipment—known as ghost gear—continues to harm ecosystems and livelihoods. In November 2025, Oceans North Kalaallit Nunaat, a Greenlandic nongovernmental organization, gathered representatives from across sectors to discuss sustainable solutions, including prevention, retrieval and post-retrieval handling. As PARNUNA EGEDE DAHL writes, the workshop explored how a coordinated national strategy could address this growing problem in Greenland.
The net hauler creaks as the heavily loaded vessel rocks and the dripping rope is slowly hauled in. Suddenly, a dark mass breaks the surface: a tangled mess of old fishing nets, lines, hooks and weights. Caked in mud and seaweed, it holds drowned carcasses alongside wriggling fish and crabs.
This foul-smelling ghost gear may have been lying on the seabed for decades—continuing to fish all the while. Retrieving it is hard, dirty, risky work. But it is essential for the health of Greenland’s marine ecosystems.
Ghost gear is fishing equipment that has been lost, abandoned or otherwise discarded at sea. It can include longlines and pound nets. In Greenland, such items can be lost due to rough seabed conditions, strong currents, ice movement, or poor gear quality or setup. Existing ghost gear can also entangle new equipment, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of loss.
Once it is lost, the gear can continue to catch fish, crustaceans, seabirds and marine mammals for years. This undermines the sustainability of fisheries, poses safety risks, harms people’s livelihoods, causes economic losses for communities, and adds pressure and pollution to Arctic marine ecosystems that are already vulnerable.
Garbage lies on a beach on Phippsøya, the largest of the Seven Islands group in Svalbard, Norway. Phippsøya is just over 1,000 km from the North Pole. Photo credit: Peter Prokoch, www.grida.no/resources/3490
Ghost gear workshop
As a multi-factorial challenge—shaped by environmental conditions, fishing practices and management systems—ghost gear requires a comprehensive solution. That is why Oceans North Kalaallit Nunaat brought fishers, authorities, researchers, companies and educational institutions together for a workshop in Nuuk in November 2025.
The aims were to shift the focus from retrieval alone towards a more preventive and strategic approach and to develop a shared, coordinated response to ghost gear. The discussions covered prevention, retrieval, after-life handling, and the way forward.
The resulting report, available upon request, contains recommendations meant to inform Naalakkersuisut (Greenland’s government).
As workshop participants pointed out, clean-up efforts are challenged by the underreporting of lost gear, which happens at least in part because reporting systems are complex and follow-up and consequences are lacking.
Still, building on earlier pilot initiatives, including work supported by WWF in Greenland, fisheries associations and the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources led clean-up efforts from 2019 to 2024, retrieving tons of gear. Supported by the government, Oceans North Kalaallit Nunaat, and other sponsors, these efforts make a difference. Because cleaned-up areas experience fewer future losses, retrieval can function as prevention.
However, scaling these efforts requires specialized equipment, strong local collaboration, and stable funding within a coordinated, strategic framework. Coastal and offshore gear require different coordination and financing models. As a result, the workshop recommended that specialized actors be licensed to carry out clean-ups.
Preventing loss
Participants agreed that clean-up alone cannot solve the problem. Prevention is key. Without stronger connections between technology, knowledge and fishing practices, ghost gear continues to accumulate faster than it can be removed.
To combine positive incentives with timely consequences for failing to report lost gear, proposed solutions included better gear quality, a standardized marking system, and digital tools for registration, tracking and reporting. Losses could also be reduced by training fishers in proper gear setup, local conditions and reporting requirements and by sharing knowledge of high-risk areas.
Once ghost gear has been retrieved, handling its after-life responsibly helps prevent it from becoming landfill waste. In Greenland, weights are reused. However, in the absence of sorting and recycling facilities, the rest ends up in local landfills or is transported to centralized waste-management facilities. There, recyclable materials are shipped abroad, while non-recyclables are incinerated.
Workshop participants discussed alternative options for sorting, reusing and recycling gear, emphasizing that solutions must be adapted to local conditions and infrastructure. Some ideas show promise, such as deposit-return schemes for sorted gear or small-scale local processing, but these need political support and national coordination.
From isolated efforts to a shared strategy
The workshop made it clear that ghost gear cannot be addressed from just one angle. Effective solutions require sustained coordination between various parties, including fishers, authorities and companies, and must be supported by clear responsibilities, stable financing and connected systems.
As a result, participants called for a Greenlandic strategy that moves beyond isolated clean‑up towards preventive steps throughout the life cycle of fishing gear.
This includes linking Greenlandic ghost gear challenges to international fishing practices and waste streams so lessons can be shared in both directions.
Ultimately, addressing ghost gear means strengthening the connections between people and the ocean across sectors, regions and borders.
—Parnuna Egede Dahl, Greenlandic Inuk and biologist
Ghost gear is a shared, cross-border challenge that cannot be solved by any single actor or country. We need to coordinate long-term efforts across the entire life cycle of fishing gear, and solutions must be grounded in shared responsibility at the local, national and international levels.
By Parnuna Dahl
PARNUNA EGEDE DAHL is a Greenlandic Inuk and biologist who works as a special advisor focusing on science, communication and campaigns.
