Events and dates will be listed on this page as soon as we have finalised the details. Thank you for looking, please check back soon.
We are delighted to announce a new pilot project, Ghost Net Story, which has been made possible by an award from the Naturesave Trust
Since the 1960’s natural fibre nets and ropes used in the fishing, naval and marine industries have been completely phased out and replaced with nylon nets and ropes. These are strong and long lasting but they never biodegrade. It is estimated that up to 640,000 metric tonnes of lost or discarded nets enter our ocean every year. They are called ghost nets because they carry on pointlessly catching and killing fish and polluting the environment long after the boats have left.
There are many wonderful volunteer led organisations working to locate lost nets and remove them. They do amazing work but lost nets are not always reported and the scale of the pollution is too great. We want to contribute to the effort to solve this problem by bringing into focus the net material itself. Can we start a conversation about how some parts of the net using community could return to natural fibre nets, using flax? After all, until the 1960’s this is how it was done. Nets can be mended to increase their lifespan and if lost at sea will harmlessly biodegrade over time.
Based in Britain’s Ocean City, Plymouth, we are a community rooted in the fishing, naval and marine industries and historically, flax played a big part in these industries. This pilot project takes us into Plymouth’s heart and soul to explore how we can engage the wider community on the issue of Ghost Nets. Who might be interested? Who can we collaborate with and how can we help to raise the profile of the conversation about ghost nets? The fishing community still has the skills of net making, let’s get them using those skills with natural fibres and sharing them.
The Naturesave Trust is funded by the activities of Naturesave Insurance, an award-winning broker with over 30 years’ experience in providing ethical and sustainable personal and commercial insurance.
These are the activities we are planning:
- community engagement event
- net making and mending workshop – we are seeking commercial fishermen with net making skills who would like to join us for this event
- net making competition with the wonderful Flaxland – everyone welcome form beginners to experts
- make a child’s fishing net workshop
- rope making demo, using a rope jack
- flax processing demo– where does flax fibre come from how do we extract it
- how long does it take for a flax net to break down? – we are seeking a marine scientist to help us here
- ghost net removal divers – we’re hoping to get a local organisation along to tell us about what they do