In Cambodia, Ghost Nets Turned Into a Livelihood

On Koh Sdach island, in Cambodia's coastal Koh Kong province, Hem Kin Oun and a group of women walk the shoreline every week looking for discarded fishing nets snagged among the rocks or washed up on the sand. These lost nets, known as ghost nets, keep trapping marine life and catching on coral reefs for as long as they stay in the water. The group she leads, SHE Waves, gives them a second life.

Hem Kin Oun shows off bags and jewelry made by SHE Waves from fishing nets recovered on the beaches of Koh Sdach. PHOTO: Eung Sea

Trained alongside two other local women by the NGO Fauna & Flora International (FFI) Cambodia, in partnership with the Fisheries Administration, Hem Kin Oun learned to sew and embroider recovered nets. The group, launched in mid-2025, started with three women; it now counts thirteen, who turn cleaned nets into bags, bracelets, necklaces and earrings sold to tourists, hotels and private buyers.

The volume collected has, however, dropped sharply: from around fifty kilograms a week at launch to about ten kilograms today. By March 2026, the group had still gathered 577 kilograms of nets and ropes since it began — a figure that gives some sense of the scale of the problem. Sales, meanwhile, have brought in roughly $3,000 since the launch, with pieces going for between $5 and $30.

Made by the women's group SHE Waves in Koh Sdach, southern Cambodia, these products are made from ghost nets and other marine waste and turned into saleable items such as jewelry and necklaces. PHOTO: Eung Sea

The scale of the problem far exceeds what a small collective can absorb. A 2022 FFI study found that fishing gear accounted for 78% of marine debris recorded in the Koh Sdach archipelago, and 66% in Koh Rong Marine National Park. Nets used locally, often made of low-quality nylon, last only one to three months before degrading; 52% of fishing households surveyed admitted to discarding them directly into the sea. FFI estimates that between 3,286 and 4,930 nets enter the ocean each year from the village of Koh Sdach alone.

For a community growing more dependent on tourism, keeping the seabed clean has become as much an economic concern as an environmental one. Boat operators who take visitors snorkeling report that reefs free of tangled nets draw in — and keep — more customers.

FFI hopes to turn the project into a model that can be replicated elsewhere along Cambodia's coast, equipping Koh Sdach with a community recycling hub capable of eventually running on its own. But the initiative's long-term future remains uncertain. Kathrin Eitel, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Zurich, notes that projects like this need more than goodwill to survive — they need stable funding and durable markets for what they produce.

The group still relies heavily on FFI's support, which pays participants a $3 daily stipend and helps them find buyers. Each week, only 50 to 70% of the waste collected is fit for reuse — a reminder that, against a global problem the WWF estimates at 500,000 to a million tons of fishing gear lost each year, the efforts of a few women on a Cambodian beach remain, by nature, modest.

Source: Mekong Eye – Eung Sea.