Divers Against Ghost Nets is a nonprofit, non-political organization that focuses on effectively and safely locating and recovering Ghostnets.
Our mission is to raise awareness of what’s going on under the surface, propose changes and sollutions, and supply training for how to safely locate and recover Ghostnets.
In almost every dive, we find small and large ghostnets and other environmentally damaging things in the oceans.
We operate mainly on the Swedish West Coast with with flexible groups of volounteer divers and surface support, but we are happy to share our experience with a wider audience all over the world. That’s why this page is in English. The goal is to engage more divers globally in the never-ending cleanup of our oceans.
Knowledge is key to safe diving, and recovering ghostnets has many hidden dangers for unaware divers. Our main safety barriers are training and standardised dive routines, and the most important ingredient, good teamwork with all involved.
Support our work
Our work is done with volunteer divers and surface support, using personal equipment, in our spare time, which keeps the operational costs to a bare minimum. We do not receive any governmental funding, and all work is generously sponsored by environmental organisations and private persons and our own events.
All donations are dedicated for our cleanups and the training of more skilled Ghostnet divers.
You can visit our webshop and dress in our signature merchandise; they are great conversation starters wherever you go!
You may also donate to our cleanups and trainings by Swish 123 441 08 09 or
Bank Giro 5389-7047
Alternatively, you can participate in our cleanups, which take place both underwater and on land. Follow our social media platforms, Instagram and Facebook, for announcements of upcoming events, as they are often posted with short notice due to weather limitations.
We also do seminars and company events when time is favourable, outdoors between April and October, and indoors seminars in the winter season. Contact us for a tailored event.
Our recent projects at a glance
Mandatory markings on fishing gear
Since the start we have been struggling with identifying the owners of the lost traps we find. This causes a lot of extra administration and handling with the police who needs to store the bad smelling lobster pots for three months before we have to pick them up again.
This year it was finally mandated to also mark the fishing gear with name and phone number!
Together with the ghost fishing yarn legislation we can sleep tight knowing that we will only find open lobster pots, and clearly identified, so that we can call the owner to collect their gear at the harbour.
Abandoned Mussel farms…
In 2020 our first film was released about the abandoned mussel farms in Stigfjorden and Koljefjorden, we continuously monitor and support the authorities in finalizing the cleanup project, more than five years later… The mussel farms are still there and have now started to disintegrate and sink. Plastic pipes are drifting around and creating hazards to sea traffic.
We think this is one of the worst environmental disasters on the Swedish west coast.
UPDATE: Bohus havsbruk is now defunct and some floating equipment has been seen on the second hand market trading sites. Hopefully it will be completely cleaned up within time! Stay tuned…
Video from below the surface…
Fiskarnas Rike Säsong 2
We have been participating in the filming of the TV series “Kingdom of Fish” for almost three years. The full production can be seen in SVT Play (only within Sweden for the moment) And we are starring in the third Episode.
Watch the full series here: https://www.svtplay.se/fiskarnas-rike
UPDATE: We work to get some good underwater material for season 3, so stay tuned, maybe something will appear next season?
Ban trawling in Gullmarsfjorden
UPDATE! Finally the trawling will be banned from summer 2027!
Well done all contributors to petitions and underwater film material from Gullmaren!
We believe that the ongoing shrimp trawling is damaging the entire Gullmarsfjord by stirring up sediments in the deep saltwater layers on the fjord bottom. We have seen an increased sedimentation throughout the fjord that is closely connected to the trawling activities. We are opposing continued trawling in the fjord to fully protect our marine reserve.
Anti-Ghostfishing yarn on lobstercages
We have been lobbying the Swedish authorities for many years to add an Anti-Ghostfishing device to all cages and traps. The new regulation was put into force in 2023 and it is a complete success! All cages found in 2024 were found with open doors, reducing the deathtrap to only marine debris, stopping the cycle of death within closed traps.
Dumping of poisonous mud outside Vinga
Gothenburg harbour needs to be dredged and one initial suggestion was to dump the poisonous mud outside Vinga Lighthouse. We opposed this suggestion together with several parties, and the poisonous mud is now required to be taken care of on land.
By tightly monitoring infrastructure projects, we can be ahead of the different projects and anticipate what environmental impacts they might cause. Several thousands of pages have been studied in this project, and we are still worried about the environmental impacts in our archipelago of such a large and long project.
Read more about project Skandiaporten here
Divers Against Ghost Nets 