abandoned fishing nets @ chek jawa 16Jan2010

A small team of volunteers wandered off from the Team Seagrass monitoring survey on 16 Jan2010 at Chek Jawa Wetlands, Pulau Ubin to cleanup a couple of abandoned fishnets at the Southern face of Chek Jawa. A recce team had spotted a few fresh nets the weekend earlier : http://wildshores.blogspot.com/2010/01/dead-fish-patrol-chek-jawa-pulau-ubin.html.

Check out these links for more about the Team Seagrass session :-
http://teamseagrass.blogspot.com/2010/01/chek-jawa-16-jan.html
http://wildshores.blogspot.com/2010/01/chek-jawa-with-teamseagrass.html
http://cjproject.blogspot.com/2010/01/3-years-after-mass-mortality-event.html
http://sgn090608.blogspot.com/2010/01/100116-chek-jawa.html

abandoned fishnets @ chek jawa 26Jan2010 from BeachBum on Vimeo.

abandoned fishnets#2 @ chek jawa 16Jan2010 from BeachBum on Vimeo.

abandoned fishnets#3 @ chek jawa 16Jan2010 from BeachBum on Vimeo.The soft mud made it very difficult to get across the shore and it made the volunteers very tired very quickly.

abandoned fishnets#4 @ chek jawa 16Jan2010 from BeachBum on Vimeo.

abandoned fishnets#5 @ chek jawa 16Jan2010 from BeachBum on Vimeo.

abandoned fishnets#6 @ chek jawa 16Jan2010 from BeachBum on Vimeo.

abandoned fishnets#7 @ chek jawa 16Jan2010 from BeachBum on Vimeo.

abandoned fishnets#8 @ chek jawa 16Jan2010 from BeachBum on Vimeo.

It is a pity that fishermen think it ok to dump, abandon, throw unwanted nets on the shores. These nets will eventually come undone and spread out across the shore getting entangled amongst mangrove trees and roots. The nets continue to trap and kill anything that is hapless enough to cross the net. Some of the nets can stretch for tens if not hundreds of meters.

This same stretch of shore was cleaned up as part of the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore 2009 in September 2009. (see the ICCS2008 Ubin video clip here). Many nets were removed although there were still many which were not removed due to the growth of coastal trees and shrubs in and around them. Fishermen seem to be using this stretch of beach as a dumping ground for unwanted fishing nets. There were also many blue drums commonly used by in the fishfarm industry strewn all over the shore.

Some of the fish nets found on the shore before were of a type not typically used by fishermen in small boats but these were heavy duty nets used by fish farms in their floating holding pens. It looks like coastal businesses and activities will continue to add to the trash load polluting our already fragile shores. Perhaps the regulatory authorities could take a more active and involved stance in regulating the industry and the use (or abuse) of our coastal heritage. Before it is too late and the few recalcitrant litterers succeed in destroying what we could have passed on to the next generation.

A total of 10 individual nets were found and removed. Some of these nets were so big and heavy that we had to cut them up into smaller more manageable bundles. At the end of the effort, we had 14 separate bundles. With the group exhausted, we decided to store the nets above the waterline for a later removal.