Design workshop on the use of biodegradable fish aggregating devices in Ghanaian purse seine and pole and line tuna fleets

The present report summarizes a workshop conducted by ISSF with the Ghanaian purse seine and pole and line tuna fleets, to design biodegradable Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs). This workshop is one of the first steps of a project funded by FAO-GEF Common Ocean Project that will test biodegradable FADs with one of the most important fleets in the Eastern Atlantic, the Ghanaian fleet, with 26 vessels fishing with FADs. The aim of the workshop was to find an appropriate FAD structure to be tested with biodegradable materials available nowadays, as well as to find the best strategy to test those FADs with the collaboration of the Ghanaian fleets. Fishers worked separately in groups to design 5 biodegradable FADs. The number of experimental FADs to deploy, as well as the protocol to follow them at sea, was also set during the workshop. This year the Ghanaian fleet will deploy 600 biodegradable FADs.