Marine Debris & Entanglement Working Group Meeting 2 - Center for Ocean Policy and Economics (COPE°)

COPE° was launched in 2022 by Northeast Maritime Institute (www.nmi.edu) - a private maritime college located in Fairhaven, Massachusetts - to provide a safe and transparent digital platform for a diverse group of individuals and organizations to collaborate on finding solutions to different maritime and ocean related problems.
COPE° has identified 6 Areas of Influence to focus its work on - Maritime Trade & Commerce, Ocean Ecology, Diplomacy & Foreign Affairs, Economic Development, Energy & Sustainability, and Technology & Innovation. Working Groups fit into these Areas and are focused on identifying and implementing actionable outcomes to address these problems.
Working Groups are volunteer-led and have been structured to be self-led by Leaders of the group, with assistance from COPE Administrators. Meetings are held digitally to remove as many barriers to participation as possible.
COPE° recently launched its Working Group on Marine Debris & Entanglement, the mission of vision of which are as follows:
Mission: To solve the issue of marine entanglement through innovation, collaboration, and technology.
Vision: To reduce and, ultimately, eliminate marine entanglement by using a multi-disciplinary input combined with the adaption and improvement of existing technology and innovation.
The main objective of this group is to mitigate the risk of entanglement for all marine life and mariners alike. This Working Group hopes to achieve this objective by establishing the ropeless and Tautline fishing systems as tools to directly and positively impact issues of marine entanglement and ghost fishing gear. This Working Group aims to promote a reduction in the amount of rope (ropeless & on demand gear) utilized at sea and to promote a change in how marine equipment is handled and deployed (tautline buoys) to promote a safer environment for whales, sharks, turtles, and other marine species while also significantly improving on deck safety.