In 2016, I first traveled to the island nation of Vanuatu with a mission: to understand the real-life impacts of ghost gear(abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear) on the local communities.
When you look at Vanuatu’s remote location in the Pacific, I’m sure it comes as no surprise that fishing is a critical part of daily life there. In fact, some estimates have shown that over 75% of adults in Vanuatu engage in fishing of some kind, and in 2018, frozen fish fillets alone contributed to 55% of Vanuatu’s total export revenue.
Never miss an update
Enter your email and never miss an update
During my trip, I met with many local fishers to hear from them first-hand about the challenges they face, and in every conversation, one theme was abundantly clear: Ghost gear was threatening their way of life.
All the fishers I met saw nets and other gear washed up on beaches, draped over coral reefs, wrapped around the propellers of their boats and littered across precious fishing grounds. And they were right to be concerned—studies have shown that ghost gear is the deadliest form of plastic pollution to marine life. In some cases, and depending on the fishery, it accounts for a loss of up to 30% in harvestable fish stocks.
Ghost gear occurs wherever fishing takes place, but there are a number of reasons that small island developing states (SIDS) such as Vanuatu are disproportionately impacted by the harms of ghost gear.
For example, due to their limited land-based resources and remote locations, these countries are highly reliant on marine resources for food security and their economy. Therefore, when ghost gear threatens fish stocks and fishing sustainability, these countries take a greater hit to their economy and food sustainability.
Furthermore, the geography of SIDS makes them disproportionately vulnerable to the impacts of ghost gear. The fisheries along their coastlines are often threatened by hurricanes, storm surges and other climatic hazards. Many studies have shown that storms can increase fishing gear loss. In some hurricane-prone areas, gear-loss records have reached as high as 100% annually. Additionally, many island nations are close in proximity to ocean gyres. Ocean gyres can relocate ghost gear from its original location, depositing the gear along the coasts of island and coastal nations.
For those reasons, SIDS have been some of the countries most impacted by ghost gear, but they have also been at the forefront of advocacy to find solutions to this problem. Over one-in-three government members of Ocean Conservancy’s Global Ghost Gear Initiative® (GGGI) are small island nations, including the Dominican Republic, Montserrat, Palau, Samoa, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
Over the years, our GGGI has worked with several island countries across the South Pacific and Caribbean, engaging local fishers, policymakers, academia and the private sector to implement best practices to prevent, mitigate and remediate the occurrence and impacts of ghost gear. This work has involved conducting fisher surveys, trialing gear marking technologies to track gear and retrieve it should it become lost, and hosting capacity-building workshops. The insights gained from working with these communities help inform practical solutions and ensure locals are effectively engaged throughout the process.
Despite the global impact of ghost gear and its disproportionate impacts on SIDS, there is currently no dedicated international agreement in place to address its impacts. Existing guidance is fragmented and often voluntary, with varying approaches across regions and nations.
For that reason, Ocean Conservancy is advocating for ghost gear to be included in the United Nations plastics treaty, currently under negotiation and entering its fifth and final session in November in Busan, South Korea.Ocean Conservancy and the Global Ghost Gear Initiative will continue to help lift up the voices of island nations within the negotiations and stand ready to assist with the implementation of the treaty after its ratification in 2025. Take action now—adding your name takes two minutes.
The post How Does Ghost Gear Affect Small Island Developing States? appeared first on Ocean Conservancy.
Ocean Acidification
Dr Heidarzadeh’s TV interview with SkyNews on the massive M7.7 Panama earthquake on 9 October 2026
Dr Heidarzadeh’s TV interview with SkyNews on the massive M7.7 Panama earthquake on 9 October 2026. Click here for the full story.
Dr Heidarzadeh’s TV interview with SkyNews on the massive M7.7 Panama earthquake on 9 October 2026
Our ocean is an incredibly vast and mysterious place. And there is no place where that is more evident than the deepest ocean area in the world: the legendary Mariana Trench. Located east of the Philippines, the Mariana Trench lies in the Mariana Archipelago in the western portion of the North Pacific. The greater area of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument is made up of more than 95,000 square miles of ocean. Beneath these waters lie incredibly complex aggregations of submerged islands and volcanoes … and of course, an astoundingly massive trench.
Dive in with us to have your biggest questions answered about the famed Mariana Trench.
How deep is the Mariana Trench?
The deepest part of the Mariana Trench, known as Challenger Deep, is almost 36,000 feet below the ocean’s surface. For context, Mount Everest is about 29,000 feet above sea level, so the Mariana Trench is about 7,000 feet deeper than Mount Everest is tall. For one more comparison, the RMS Titanic lies at a depth of about 12,500 feet below sea level. The Challenger Deep is in waters nearly three times deeper than this ship’s final resting place.
Due to its enormous size, the Mariana Trench has at times been affectionately nicknamed the Grand Canyon of the ocean. This is certainly a picturesque image, but don’t let the mammoth size of this U.S. national terrestrial park fool you into thinking the Mariana Trench matches its size. The trench’s footprint is estimated to be 120 times larger than the Grand Canyon’s, and to reach the bottom of Challenger Deep, you’d need to descend through almost six Grand Canyons stacked on top of each other before you’d reach the seafloor.
Oh … and did we mention it’s five times wider than it is deep? It’s about 43 miles wide!
What is Challenger Deep, and how long would it take to reach it?
Challenger Deep is the deepest point of the Mariana Trench. Fewer than 30 people have ever journeyed to this area. The trek below the surface is long, dark and time-consuming, and it’s not an expedition considered lightly by scientists and explorers.
The first people to descend into the depths of this area in 1960 were oceanographers Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh, and it took them close to five hours to reach Challenger Deep. Since then, more advanced submersibles have been created, but it still takes two to four hours for modern vessels to reach such depths. For example, explorer and filmmaker James Cameron reached the seafloor in a little more than 2.5 hours in the first documented solo submarine dive to the area, and it took oceanographer Dr. Dawn Wright about four hours in 2022. It is crucial that these submersibles descend slowly and steadily beneath the surface, as the immense water pressure compounds with every mile a submersible descends. Speaking of pressure …
Get Ocean Updates in Your Inbox
Sign up with your email and never miss an update.
What is the water pressure at the bottom of the Mariana Trench?
If you thought the depth of the Mariana Trench was its only jaw-dropping feature, think again. Water pressure is one of the most important factors affecting deep-sea life. In the ocean, pressure increases by one atmosphere for every 33 feet (10 meters) of depth. One atmosphere (a unit of measurement for pressure equivalent to average air pressure at sea level) is equal to about 14.7 pounds per square inch (PSI), which is the approximate standard atmospheric pressure at sea level. If you were to convert atmospheric pressure into weight, one atmosphere is about the weight of a bowling ball. Stay with me, friends.
If a vessel were to dive 2,000 feet below the surface, the pressure would equal that of 60 bowling balls stacked atop every square inch of that submersible. But 60 bowling balls is simply nothing compared to the pressure in the Mariana Trench. The atmospheric pressure at the depths of Challenger Deep is equal to about 16,000 PSI. That pressure is about the same as the weight of an entire full-grown elephant on every square inch of a submersible!
Need a more extreme comparison? If a human were to be placed at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the pressure would be equal to that of 50 jumbo jets piled on top of a person!
Do any animals live in the Mariana Trench?
The depths of the Mariana Trench come with immense pressure and extreme darkness, but somehow, life finds a way to survive. Organisms that live at an extreme depth, like that of Challenger Deep, have to be highly adapted to low temperatures (typically just above freezing), high pressure and virtually no light at all.
Species found in the depths of the Mariana Trench might look vastly different from animals from other ocean depths because their anatomy has been refined to thrive in harsh conditions. At such great depths, these animals typically depend on chemosynthesis (using nutrient-rich waters being pumped out of hydrothermal vents) or descending detritus (dead matter that has fallen from higher parts of the ocean) for food, such as whale falls. Just a handful of these animals include species of octopuses and squids, sea cucumbers, amphipods, sea jellies, shrimp, sea worms and some wild-looking fish!
In 2025, more than 7,000 new species were discovered in the Mariana Trench, including the hadal snailfish (Pseudoliparis swirei). This is the deepest-dwelling fish currently known to science. Now, the fish has been dubbed “the Mariana snailfish.”
How was the Mariana Trench formed?
The process by which the Mariana Trench was created is a geologically fascinating one known as subduction. On the Earth’s surface, there are thin plates that cover the planet’s mantle, which is made of molten rock. If two of these plates collide, one pushes down into the Earth’s mantle while the other is pushed over the bottom plate. When this happens, a trench is formed from the drag of the bottom plate. This process can sometimes create incredibly strong earthquakes. The plates that forged the Mariana Trench’s creation are estimated to be up to approximately 180 million years old.
This trench was unknown to scientists until 1875. It was then that a team of explorers on the HMS Challenger measured the depth of the sea by simply lowering a weighted rope into the water. They were baffled when they measured that first portion of the seafloor to be five miles below the surface. And so was born the origin of some of the most daring deep-sea explorations known to mankind to date.
Is the Mariana Trench protected?
The Mariana Trench is in waters off Guam and the Mariana Islands. The region is protected from some human activities under its status as a marine monument. The creation of the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument signified that international, national and local leaders all recognize the importance of protecting this area.
However, just because the region is protected does not mean it’s not vulnerable to modern threats to ocean health. Plastic bags have been spotted in the Mariana Trench during several expeditions, highlighting the far-reaching impact of the marine debris problem. No corner of our ocean is safe from the ever-present threat of plastic pollution. The reality of a changing climate makes the future well-being of wondrous places like the Mariana Trench uncertain. What’s more: More than 70% of the global ocean has yet to be mapped. And what we don’t yet know about, we cannot wisely work to protect.
It’s up to us to work together to defend our ocean, from the sandy shores of our favorite beaches to the deepest, darkest parts of the sea. Together, we can work to protect our ocean as a whole, which ultimately helps protect treasured places like Challenger Deep.
Find out how you can join Ocean Conservancy’s wave of momentum to secure a healthy ocean and a thriving planet, forever and for everyone!
The post The Mysteries of the Mariana Trench appeared first on Ocean Conservancy.