Baseline:
According to the first-phase survey, we found out that there is a high replacement rate for fishing gears there and generated a large number of abandoned fishing gears. Fishing nets discarded on the shore and in the sea are mostly from the small fishing boats under 12 meters, which are mainly drift gillnets for crab fishing. Taking Xibu village of Naozhou island as an example, there are more than 100 fishing boats in the village, where more than half are for crab fishing. Each boat scraps about 20 nets (about 0.5 kg each) every month, and produces more than 500 kg of abandoned nets every month while other trawlers scrap 1-2 trawls (about 30-40 kg each) every year. If we count for 6-months fishing time per year, then there will be at least 4-5 tons of abandoned fishing nets generated every year. At the same time, some fishermen said that due to the difficulty to recycle and the low price, they would rather discard the broken fishing nets on the shore or in the sea. That has led to an increase in marine debris and posed a huge threat to the survival of many creatures, including horseshoe crabs. How to dispose abandoned fishing nets has also become a huge problem for Naozhou Island and even all coastal cities and villages.
At present, there is no organization focused on marine conservation on Naozhou island. But there are a few residents cared for the issues and kick on actions. For instance, Ms. Jianmeng DENG, one of local resident returned to her hometown from the year 2019 to set up a hostel called ?Jamie?s moving castle? and to hold several activities voluntarily for children in her fishery community like marine conservation, beach clean-up, and protect the horseshoe crabs. She encourages community children to get to know the wildlife around, raising their awareness to protect hometown environment, and moreover influence their families.

Problems:
Severe status of broken abandoned fishing nets and could be seen almost everywhere on the beach and in the sea; The coastal environment is rather nasty with litter all around; Low awareness for community fishermen and tourists to protect the horseshoe crabs and there appears bycatch and eating horseshoe crabs; Lack of coastal horseshoe crab baseline data.

Activities:
Activity 1. Recycle and reuse abandoned fishing nets
1.1 Design the questionnaire and propose the research report. Form a feasible advice on recycling and reusing abandoned fishing nets based on facts
1.2 A team including villager volunteers with fixed members and alternative volunteers take recycling abandoned fishing nets as main work and set certain recycling points. Fishermen work under several shifts and take basic management fee as an income. They need to sort the abandoned fishing nets in the shift and sell nets to the raw material factory. This is a mechanism to encourage fishermen to start; Keep in touch and interactive regularly with local government and marine reserve, and organize volunteer communicating workshop and lecture each for once; Carry out two training courses on the method to recycle and reuse of abandoned fishing nets for 2 times and set a post-course exam. Those who pass the assessment would formally be into the team.
1.3 By using recycled abandoned fishing nets as one of the raw materials, design and produce themed T-shirts and eco-friendly bags.
Activity 2. Fishermen community co-construction with horseshoe crabs conservation as a specialty
2.1 Marine knowledge education course for community children?s club, with the horseshoe crab as a key topic;
2.2 Fishermen expert class;
2.3 Beach clean-up for public(tourists/fishermen/volunteers), note down the data like coverage and number of abandoned fishing nets, and number, health status on shell and age of horseshoe crab tangled on the nets. Plan to invite local media in Zhanjiang.
Activity 3 Research on breeding and conservation of horseshoe crabs
Apply detailed research along the coastline of Naozhou island by season and time. Produce a research paper based on baseline survey data obtained.

Outcomes:
1.To produce a questionnaire of abandoned fishing nets recycling and a research report (10,000 words in Chinese characters);
2.To incubate and build a team for recycling and sorting abandoned fishing nets;
3.To reduce 1 ton abandoned fishing nets, to design and produce 300 pieces of clothing or eco-friendly bags using material remade by abandoned fishing nets
4.To refine community children?s club of marine conservation. To launch 10 times of marine knowledge education course per year for children and teenagers based on Xibu village on Naozhou island and nearby villages. To engage 300 people and around 200 families into science education activities.
5.To hold the science education training regularly for fishermen community. To convene the tourists, fishermen and volunteers to do the beach clean-up for 4 times per year, affected about 1,000 people;
6. (counterpart funds) To analyze data based on long-term research and baseline survey, 2 papers.