CONSERVATION
Growing up in the Mediterranean made me painfully aware of what’s at stake.
The Med is the most overfished, overexploited sea on the planet. It covers barely 1% of the planet’s surface, yet it’s home to 18% of all known marine species, a true underwater treasure!
But yeah, not many people know about it because we have a terrible marketing problem. Soon will focus on fixing it but for now, let’s focus on direct-action campaigns to fix some specific consequences that fisheries provoke.
CAMPAIGN GHOST
Lately, everyone’s waking up to how bad plastic is for the ocean and picking it up from the beach because they don’t want to see a poor sea turtle strangled in it. And that’s fantastic! But there is a much bigger threat to marine life where most eyes can’t reach. Have you ever heard of ghost fishing?
When fishing gear gets lost, ripped, or just abandoned, it doesn’t stop killing. Massive nets can keep drifting for years or snag on reefs and rocks. Longlines loaded with baited hooks and weights don’t just disappear. Crab and lobster traps keep trapping creatures inside even when discarded. And these are just some of the threats marine life has to face but the list is much longer.
The main difference between regular trash and this stuff is that ghost gear was engineered to kill and made to last. And when it’s lost, it becomes even more deadly because every creature that gets trapped becomes bait for the next.
Whether you support commercial fishing or not (which you shouldn’t), at least it has a purpose. Ghost fishing kills for nothing.
Recovering this gear isn’t easy, cheap, or safe — even with the right training and tools. But if we want marine life to have a chance, it’s something we have to fight to fix.
Supporting these campaigns is something to seriously consider when deciding which projects or organisations you will support, donate to, or enrol in.
CAMPAIGN RETURN HOME
One of the ocean’s biggest invisible threats is bycatch.
In short: fishing boats target specific and profitable species, but the sea doesn’t work by their rules. Everything else that ends up in their nets and lines becomes collateral damage. That’s bycatch and this happens everywhere, but the Mediterranean is one of the cruelest examples.
Bottom trawling is a brutal technique that drags heavy, no-mercy nets across the seafloor, crushing and killing everything in its path.
After hours of destruction, the nets are hauled up and dumped on deck. Fishermen then sort through the chaos, keeping only the marketable species and leaving the rest that are still alive to suffocate under the sun. Sharks, rays, and other tough survivors can fight for hours before dying.
That’s where Return Home comes in.
As soon as the fishing boats return from duty, we buy the ones still showing signs of life, try to revive them, and release them back to the sea.
Each attempt costs 10€, and you’ll receive a short video of the buy/rehab/release process.
To be honest is just a small act in the grand scheme of things, but it’s extremely satisfying and heart-touching. And by donating you’ll be able to say that you’ve saved a shark’s life!