Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2018L01047:reg:9:p3
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2018L01047
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 9 (pt 3/3)
Character Range: 28009–29351

are therefore not required under MARPOL to maintain a garbage management plan or garbage record book on board. Fisheries observer data for 2003–2015 from purse seine and longline vessels operating in the western and central Pacific Ocean noted more than 10,000 pollution incidents within the exclusive economic zones of 25 Pacific countries and territories and in international waters. Most of the purse seine pollution was from dumping plastics waste (Richardson et al., 2016).
           Discarded, lost and abandoned fishing nets are a significant transboundary issue in the Arafura and Timor seas. Fisheries in the region support livelihoods in the littoral nations of Indonesia, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea and Australia (Butler et al., 2013). Since the early 2000s there have been reports of very high levels of foreign, fishing-related marine debris on Australia's sparsely populated, remote northern shores. There is limited information on the temporal and spatial patterns of this fishing debris or its origin (Edyvane and Penny, 2017). Gillnets and other passive fishing gears are thought to be the most problematic of ghost nets (Gilman, 2016; Wilcox et al., 2015a). Northern Australia has some of the highest densities of ghost nets in the world, with up to three tonnes per kilometre washing ashore at some shorelines annually.