Ghost Nets

Anuar Abdullah and his team arrive as the sun is setting in a small costal Burmese town, the closest connection to the island of Kyun Pila, some three hours away by long tail boat. Deep in the Mergui Archipelago, this remote island has remained relatively untouched. The archipelago itself is hard to access and tourist infrastructure is still limited to a few resorts dotted around the 36,000 km² of mostly uninhabited islands.

Anuar and his team are crossing to Kyun Pila to remove the ghost nets that have been entangling and suffocating nearby reefs. Currently, the main cause of concern to the archipelago is over fishing, dynamite fishing and plastic pollution, which destroy the reef. Ghost nets are global concern. According to animal rights watchdog World Animal Protection, approximately 640,000 tons of ghost nets are left behind in the world’s oceans each year, and around 136,000 whales, dolphins, seals and turtles are estimated to be caught in them.