Fishing for ghost nets: How TREE Foundation and HCLFoundation are cleaning the seas

More than 11,500 kilos of abandoned, lost or discarded fishing nets, known as ghost nets, were collected in the last three months from the Chennai coast, largely from the Neelankarai-to-Kovalam section. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Tonnes of them are yet to be retrieved from our long coastline, many entangled around marine animals preventing them from moving freely.

“In fact, when the North East Monsoon sets in, the quantity of ghost nets being collected also increases depending on the wind pattern seen during the months of October to March. From December onwards, the ghost nets are observed floating closer to the shore,” says Supraja Dharani, founder of TREE Foundation, a Chennai-based non-governmental organisation that focuses on marine conservation.