Ghost Diving, proud member of GGGI since their launch in 2014, is honored to be a recipient of the Global Ghost Gear Initiative small grant 2022. The generous grant of USD 30.000 will be spent entirely on our new innovative project Coasts Untangled, where we will, conduct ghost fishing gear surveys along the Greek coast including:

• Hosting workshops with Ghost Diving Greece and local stakeholders in fishing and coastal management to find areas most impacted by ALDFGs and share knowledge.
  
• Conducting aerial surveys of areas of interest across approximately 25 km2 of costal marine habitat.
• Running field tests on machine-learning algorithms to detect ghost gear using aerial imagery.
• Contributing to GGGI data.
  

Ocean Conservancy’s Global Ghost Gear Initiative® (GGGI) engages with international leadership as well as grassroots projects around the world to combat ghost gear—abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG). GGGI membership includes representatives from academia, governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the private sector dedicated to combat this most harmful form of marine debris.

Inspired by and modeled after a similar small grants program sponsored by Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup® (ICC) in support of ocean cleanup projects, Ocean Conservancy launched its GGGI Small Grants Program in 2021. This program builds greater capacity for GGGI projects by providing the financing and mentoring support needed for GGGI member projects with the aim of preventing, mitigating and remediating ghost gear.