A funding announcement was made in Dartmouth Nova Scotia yesterday, but had it’s start in the Alberni Inlet and Barkley Sound.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada will provide $8.3 million to assist in the retrieval of ghost gear – lost or discarded nets, crab traps, and fishing gear.
Courtenay – Alberni MP Gord Johns said he took concerns from local groups and pushed for funding from the federal government.
“It orignated with groups like Rendezvous Dive Charters from the Alberni Valley, and Emerald Sea Protection Society on the west coast,” he said. “These groups have been advocating for a program like this for a long time, so we’re delighted to see the government follow through with something we’ve been pressing for in Ottawa for a number of years now.”
Johns said the funding will help divers, mariners, aquaculture workers and indigenous and coastal communities receive assistance in preventing fish and whale entanglement, which also benefits marine stocks as a whole.
DFO estimates 640,000 tons of abandoned, lost or discarded fishing gear enters our oceans every year, and can stay in the ocean for hundreds of years harming both our environment and our economy.
