In 2011, marine scientist Nick Hill helped launch a programme turning abandoned fishing nets into carpet yarn; 300 tonnes recycled and other conservation efforts helped protect 5,700 hectares of ocean
For a long time, coastal communities in the central Philippines have balanced two sources of income. There are risks associated with either sending boats out to fish or tending rows of seaweed lines stretched over shallow lagoons. Seasonal variations in fish catches and global demand for seaweed can cause a household to run out of food or money during a challenging year. A young marine researcher was initially drawn to the area by this daily balancing act that took place in dozens of small island settlements, and it ultimately resulted in one of the more peculiar fishing net recycling stories in contemporary ocean conservation.
A scientist's discovery in the water
In 2006, Nick Hill was working on his PhD at the Institute of Zoology in London, studying how access to capital and food security affected whether coastal people in the central Philippines decided to fish or produce seaweed instead. His fieldwork was part of conservation work that the Zoological Society of London had already been doing with Project Seahorse, work that had helped build more than thirty community-managed marine protected areas around the region. Those reserves were paying off, but they still needed consistent funding and ongoing community support to survive from year to year. Hill and his colleagues began searching for a new source of income that would help make local conservation efforts financially sustainable, without depending solely on grant funding.
Looks like the missing piece was on the seabed all along. Fishing boats were throwing out nets that trapped marine species and fouled reefs. Made from nylon, the nets might remain in seawater for centuries, polluting the waterways that the new reserves were designed to safeguard. Hill’s team began to wonder if the Philippine nets might be a resource that paid for themselves, rather than waste to be carted away and forgotten.
A partnership nobody expected
By 2011, the American flooring manufacturer Interface was already collaborating with the Italian firm Aquafil, a business that had pioneered a means of regenerating nylon yarn from old fishing gear and other industrial waste that it offers as ECONYL, so there was a solution to that concern. The interface supplied startup funds and business strategy, Aquafil converted the baled nylon into new yarn, and a community banking system drawn from development finance enabled families to save and trade against future net collections. The three partners believed that a cooperative program might satisfy both conservation goals and household incomes, as the group had developed community links in the region since 1996.
The ensuing operation was named Net Works, and people were instructed to gather, clean and bale old nets instead of letting them pile up on the shoreline or lie stranded on reefs. The interface supplied startup funds and business strategy; Aquafil converted the baled nylon into new yarn, and a community banking system drawn from development finance enabled families to save and trade against future net collections. The torn net, once a mere hazard for villagers, is now sold into a supply chain that feeds carpet manufacturing on the other side of the world.
From pilot project to global ocean conservation enterprise
According to ZSL, the programme has recycled some 270 million metres of fishing net and 300 tonnes of disused gear across 32 villages, while also helping to expand and improve the management of local marine protected areas. Then the identical net for the cash model was tested in Cameroon and Indonesia, adapting the approach to different coastlines and fishing cultures. That success eventually led the programme to outgrow its identity as a single conservation project and to split off as an independent social company. That enterprise, Coast4C
Separate reporting on the wider ghost net recycling movement by National Geographic has described how such models connect marginalised coastal communities directly to mainstream global supply chains, turning ghost gear into both income and habitat protection. Today, the program is led by Hill, alongside Amado Blanco, who helped develop the original version of the scheme on the ground in the Philippines back in 2011. What started as a doctorate topic regarding fishing livelihoods has become a model other conservation groups are now studying as they consider how to finance reef protection without relying solely on contributions. Once a threat to Philippine reefs, nets are now more likely to be underfoot, woven into carpet tiles thousands of kilometres from the waters they came from.
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