Set up in 2010, the Olive Ridley Project works towards eradicating the issues surrounding ‘ghost gear’ in the Indian Ocean. Ghost gear is lost, discarded or abandoned fishing equipment, usually in the form of broken fishing nets, which continue fishing as they float through the ocean, unseen, hence the name ‘ghost’. Marine life can easily get entangled within this fishing equipment, and most commonly in Maldives, we see the Olive Ridley species of turtle entangled. It is the plight of this species of Vulnerable sea turtle that gave the Olive Ridley Project its name.
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| Hosts don’t want to eat plastic.. neither does marine life! |
Our afternoon consisted of training sessions for selected hosts. Our Mr Friday (butler) team and boat crew are the eyes of the resort, often walking the jetties, visiting the villas, or driving boats to and from the island. They are often the ones who spot ghost gear or entangled marine life around our resort, and as such they were taught how to handle entanglement situations effectively, and why it is important to collect so much information about the nets themselves. By collecting data about the fishing nets, we can start to find out where they are originating from, and using this information, the Olive Ridley Project helps educate the fisheries in those areas. Even our Bangladeshi gardeners were trained with the help of translator and head gardener Sajal.
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