Re:Fish Final Conference 2025 — Summary of Key Insights and Results
Re:Fish Final Conference 2025 — Summary of Key Insights and Results
That was one input from a participant in the Re:Fish Final Conference, which was held in Tallinn in Estonia and online on the 20th of November 2025. Download the presentation from the conference here.
More than 60 people from Sweden, Finland, Estonia, and several other countries attended the event, which offered a mix of videos from the project, keynote presentations from Marta Ruiz and Kelli Seppel, partner presentations, and a speech from the Re:Fish project team.
Some key results: the project team (through dragging and diving) has cleaned up 225 km², retrieved more than 8,763 m of gillnets, 2,044 kg of lost fishing gear, and 1,237 kg of other trash from the Baltic Sea. We also reached more than 8.6 million people through various awareness-raising campaigns.
In the project, there have also been analyses of the fishnets, data gathered about citizens’ and sport fishermen’s knowledge, and much more. These reports will be published on the website in 2026. We also shared information about Rosgis, a service by the Finnish Environment Institute that allows you to report litter in the environment.
The EU Central Baltic Programme secretariat representative, Mr Nordmunds Strautmanis, stated:
“The Baltic Sea has pretty poor health, and when we read the applications and were to choose which projects to fund, the Re:Fish project stood out. It promised a very hands-on and practical approach, with citizen science and preventive actions to deal with the challenge. I would say that that really worked very well from our perspective.”
He also stated that they are proud of the results achieved, the well-functioning cross-border collaboration, and the partnership with different stakeholders such as youth, recreational fishermen, and others.
The participants’ main takeaways from the workshop were that preventive action is essential and far more cost-effective than cleaning up the consequences of marine litter, and that keeping the seas free from abandoned and lost fishing gear requires joint commitment from government, ports, and both commercial and recreational fishers. They further noted that while the ghost-net situation is improving, littering remains a costly challenge for people and nature, making early action crucial. Participants also highlighted the complexity of regulating recreational passive gear, the importance of understanding its social dimensions, and the value of transdisciplinary cooperation in fostering environmental stewardship.
Across the presentations, there was a strong sense of inspiration and hope: progress is visible in many countries, effective collaboration is expanding, and collective efforts can meaningfully protect marine ecosystems and help repair past harms!
