The artificial intelligence-powered drones have been used to locate and remove “ghost nets” — abandoned fishing gear that threatens marine life, along the Gulf of Carpentaria coastline in northern Australia.
An initiative, led by Charles Darwin University (CDU) and Indigenous Anindilyakwa Land and Sea Rangers, has surveyed nearly 84 km of remote shoreline, detecting 72 ghost nets ranging from small fragments to nets over 5 meters long, according to a CDU release on Thursday.Ghost nets, often hidden from view or buried in sand, pose serious risks to marine life. Previously, costly and weather-dependent helicopter surveys were used to find them, the release said.
“Drones offer a user-controlled aerial monitoring solution, particularly suited to northern Australia, where survey efforts are often limited by accessibility and seasonality,” said CDU PhD candidate Aliesha Hvala.
The new drone-based approach offers a more affordable, flexible, and precise solution, allowing rangers to efficiently map affected areas and plan targeted clean-up missions, according to Anindilyakwa Land and Sea Ranger-Aquatic Biosecurity Officer Benjamin McArdle.
“High-resolution images combined with precise GPS coordinates of ghost nets has greatly improved the efficiency of trip planning,” McArdle said.
The project also uses a specially designed vessel to reach and retrieve nets in hard-to-access locations in Northern Australia, one of the country’s most ecologically significant and unspoiled coastal regions, said the CDU release.
Ghost nets damage marine environments in Northern Australia and are removed by Indigenous groups and non-government organizations, then burned or buried, according to separate research by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Australia’s national science agency, in September 2023.
A key part of the initiative is training Indigenous rangers in drone operation, building local expertise and ensuring long-term monitoring capability, it said, adding further broad-scale drone surveying is planned in the coming weeks. Enditem
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