(Ghost) fishing in the Korean South Sea

Our Korean chapter invited us to run a cleanup project in the South Sea (Namhae), and of course we wouldn’t say no. South Korea is a beautiful country, with friendly, highly motivated people. And of course we are also very curious about the situation on the ground regarding the “ghost fishing” problem, because it is not without reason that the Korean chapter has existed since 2017.

We don’t often experience a situation like in the Korean South Sea (Namhae), it is interesting but difficult at the same time. The heavily fished areas suffer enormously from lost fishing gear, but the active fishing gear is still in between. You need some knowledge here so as not to make mistakes and disable active fishing gear and thus disadvantage a fisherman. We were therefore very pleased with the experience and skills of our Korean colleagues who skill-fully noticed the differences underwater. And that was not easy, because visibility was highly dependent on the location and weather conditions; it went from about 10m to 10cm visibility underwater.

We recovered a huge mountain of cages as well as several lengths of fishing nets and many (especially octopus) lures. Great work team and thanks for the hospitality!

Pascal van Erp, Global Coordinator | Ghost Diving