Baseline:
Hainan Province is rich in fish resources with a variety of species, and the fishery industry is dominated by fishing and supplemented by aquaculture. In 2019, the output of fishing products in Hainan reached 1.096 million tons, accounting for about 63.96% of the output of aquatic products. Among them, 1.08 million tons of marine fishing and 17,000 tons of freshwater fishing. Between 2012 and 2106, Hainan's freshwater fishing output only increased by 2.22%, while marine fishing increased by 14.04%. More than one-tenth of the population depends on marine fisheries.

Gillnets, trawls, nets, fishing tackles, and purse seines are the main types of fishing gear in order. Among them, gillnets are an important type of operation along the coast of my country. In 2019, there were 81,900 gillnet fishing vessels in the country, accounting for 55.76% of marine fishing motorized fishing vessels, with the least number of purse seiners. The wire diameter of the open net and gill net is generally between 0.08mm and 0.70mm. The value of a single piece of net is low. The price of a single gill net is about several hundred yuan to thousands of yuan. The net height ranges from one meter to ten, and the net can be as long as several hundred meters. There is a high probability of being discarded due to obstacles during operation. For example, portunids, etc., may be entangled and cut the net.

There are 26,500 fishing boats in Hainan Province, with an average tonnage of only 20 tons, and 78% of the small fishing boats are under 20 tons. In general, marine fishery enterprises in Hainan Province are obviously ?small, scattered and weak?, with old fishing boats, gear, and methods. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) describes small-scale fisheries as "a form of the fishery that utilizes marine and inland water fishery resources adopting labor-intensive fishing, processing, and distribution techniques". In China, small-scale fisheries usually refer to "subsistence fisheries using small fishing boats (shorter than 12 meters or slightly longer than 12 meters) for offshore fishing". The degree of industrialization and organization of fishery in Hainan Province is low, lacking the drive of leading enterprises and aquafarmers' cooperative organizations, and a modern industrial chain has not yet been formed. The income of fishermen in Hainan is below the national average level. In 2019, their income was 28% lower than the national average level, which is a low level.

In addition, Hainan Province officially enacted legislation in December 2020 to implement a provincial ban on plastics and issued the "Hainan Special Economic Zone Prohibition of Disposable Non-degradable Plastic Products" and "Hainan Province Comprehensive Ban on the Production, Sale, and Use of Disposable Non-degradable Plastic Products Implementation Plan". The policy is strong and advanced in the country.

Main problems:
According to the 2021 UNEP report " From Pollution to Solution: A global assessment of marine litter and plastic pollution", there are currently between 75 million and 199 million tons of plastic waste in the ocean, accounting for 85% of marine litter. Without effective interventions, the annual amount of plastic waste entering aquatic ecosystems is expected to nearly triple to 23-37 million tons per year by 2040. If a life cycle analysis of plastics is carried out, the global greenhouse gas emissions from plastics were 1.7 Gt carbon dioxide equivalent in 2015 and are expected to increase to about 6.5 Gt carbon dioxide equivalent by 2050, accounting for 15% of the global carbon budget.

Although China is not a maritime country, it has a long coastline, and marine plastic leakage is crucial to the global marine plastic pollution control. China produces 100 million tons of plastic every year, accounting for one-third of the world. Among the floating garbage in the ocean, China has the largest amount of plastic garbage, accounting for 92.9%. The plastic types are plastic ropes, plastic debris, foam and plastic bags. Plastic waste accounts for 75.9% of the beach waste, including cigarette butts, foam, plastic fragments, plastic ropes and packaging products. Plastics account for 83.3% of the seabed garbage, including plastic debris, plastic bags and plastic ropes (2021 Ministry of Environment: Bulletin on the State of China's Marine Ecological Environment).

Plastic waste has a great impact on river and marine ecosystems and biodiversity. China is a big country in aquaculture. China's fishery output in 2019 was 10 million tons, of which the South China Sea output was 3 million tons, accounting for about one third. The catch with trawls, gillnets and open nets accounted for more than 80%, gillnets accounted for 80% and purse seines accounted for 16.7%. The global production of fishing gear is 500,000-1,000,000 tons every year, and the fishing nets are mostly made of nylon, PP, PVC, PS and other materials. Every year, the fishing farms use a lot of fishing net materials, and they will be replaced frequently, resulting in scattered fishing nets in the ocean, known as "ghost fishing nets". The "ghost fishing nets" cause entanglement problems in more than 50% of marine mammals, seabirds and turtles, and account for 10% of marine plastic.
According to the "China Fishery Statistical Yearbook", in 2019, there were 33 fishing townships, 345 fishing villages, and 87,693 fishing households in Hainan Province, with a total fishing population of 417,591, including nearly 200,000 traditional fishermen and about 120,000 professional fishing personnel. As of the end of 2020, there were 1,749 rural fishing boats in Haikou, of which 1,734 fishing boats were under 12 meters, accounting for 99% of the total. The fishery output value of Sanya is twice that of Haikou, and there are large fishing ports such as Yazhou. As a tourist attraction, the traffic is developed and it has a greater publicity influence. At present, although the number of small fishing boats is declining, the group is still huge, and fishermen are also faced with the difficulty to find alternative livelihoods in a short period of time. Fishing net recycling and regeneration industry can bring jobs for local fishermen, especially women, and increase tax revenue.

The main reasons for the difficulty in recycling abandoned fishing nets in Hainan are as follows:
1. Because fishing nets are difficult to clean, and many are discarded after one or several uses. Affected by the higher value of fisheries than the value of fishing nets, fishing boats and fishermen lack motivation to bring back their nets.
2. Although Hainan has a large fishery production, the level of industrialization is low and the income level of fishermen is not high. In order to save costs, fishing nets are used frequently, which leads to a decrease in the quality of fishing nets with the increase of the number of times of use. Too many times of use will cause the recycling value to be too low, and it will be difficult to recycle and regenerate, increasing the probability of the fishing nets being discarded into the ocean.
3. In the past, fishing nets were purchased at low prices by informal small workshop enterprises for recycling and processing. These enterprises lacked environmental protection facilities, and the quality and value of recycled products were very low. In order to reduce the discarded fishing nets entering the ocean and reduce the cost of salvaging marine fishing nets, it is necessary to form a closed loop of profit subsidies for recycled products. Hainan's fishing net recycling industry has not developed on a large-scale, and there is also a lack of a back-end fishing net recycling industry chain.

With the proposal of China's dual-carbon goal, the construction of a green and low-carbon recycling system provides opportunities for the recycling industry. Solving the problem of front-end recycling fishing nets is the top priority, and requires the full cooperation of the government, fishery, recycling industry, brands, and NGOs. This project focuses on marine plastics, including fishing nets and fishing gear, and explores good fishing net recycling motivation and policy mechanisms to form a closed loop of fishing net recycling, establish a sustainable path for marine fishing net recycling, ensure the authenticity of marine plastic recycling data sources, and reduce fishing nets entering the ocean fundamentally. The goal of the project is to increase the number of fishing nets recycled, increase the price of downstream recycled fishing nets, and change the low-end market of small workshops in the past to benefit fishermen.

Activities:
Activity 1.
Project Activity 1 Stakeholder Communication
1. Visit important fishing ports, communities, enterprises and other stakeholders in Sanya, Hainan to collect fishing nets and fishery production data, literature, reports and policies.
2.1.1 Communication with stakeholders of fishing ports
3.1.2 Participation of fishing communities in fishermen survey
1.3 Investigate the regeneration market with downstream enterprises and brand enterprises on the fishing net
Activity 2.
Project Activity 2 Submitting policy proposals
2.1 Communicate with relevant government departments and submit policy recommendations to encourage better centralized collection of fishing nets and incentives
2.2 Propose a management path for the recycling and regeneration of fishing nets
Activity 3.
Project Activity 3 Carrying out pilot construction
4. 3. Carry out the marine plastic recycling - centralized collection, and pilot projects of the recycling mode with differential price subsidies.
3.1 Establish fishing net recycling points and collect fishing nets in a centralized manner as much as possible
3.2 Carry out fishing net subsidy action, and according to different quality levels, recycling enterprises provide subsidies to recycle old nets.
Activity 4.
Project Activity 4 Evaluating fishing net recycling traceability and quantifying the carbon emissions of recycling
4.1 Develop a traceable evaluation system for fishing net recycling collection
4.2 Develop quantified methods for recycling and carbon emission reduction in the whole life cycle.
Activity 5.
Project activity 5 Capacity building and training
5.1 Develop teaching materials for marine plastic recycling in communities and schools
5.2 Provide professional training on fishing net recycling to local communities, especially women, and provide employment opportunities for women
5.3 Conduct centralized recycling training for recycling station personnel
5.4 Hold marine fishing net recycling events and disseminate in the press

Outcome:
Through investigation, master the basic situation of the use and abandonment of fishing nets in project sites
Guiding fishing net recycling mechanism
Make policy recommendations, gain government support, and set up pilots
Increase the recycling rate of fishing nets by 50% on the original basis, and reduce the number of fishing nets entering the ocean.
The awareness of local fishermen and tourists on the recycling of fishing nets has been improved, and a traceability assessment method for fishing net recycling has been established to quantify the impact on the environment and climate change
1. 50 women master fishing net sorting and trimming skills.
2. Increase employment and income of local fishermen.