Ottawa announces $8.3M fund to help rid Canadian waters of ghost gear.

DFO says 640,000 tonnes of abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing gear enters the world’s oceans every year.

Ottawa says it will spend $8.3 million in an effort to rid Canadian waters of abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing gear.

The new gear retrieval program announced Tuesday will help fishermen, environmental groups and coastal communities find and retrieve so-called “ghost gear” from the ocean and dispose of it responsibly.

It will also support the acquisition of new technologies to reduce gear loss.