Malta's Only Ghost Net Recovery Program
When a fishing net is lost, it doesn't stop working. That's the whole problem. It keeps catching fish, crabs, turtles and anything else that swims into it, for years at a time, on reefs almost nobody ever visits. Project Xibka exists to find those nets and bring them back to the surface.
Since 2020 we've recovered 280 of them from the waters around Malta and Gozo, and last year was our most productive yet, with 79 nets in a single year. Before a net is cut free, we mark its location and record its depth, mesh size and material. Over several years that's given us a detailed picture of where the heaviest concentrations sit and how to prioritise where the team goes next.
A small number of sites account for a disproportionate share of what we find. Qammieħ Reef has produced 33 nets to date, and Xatt l-Aħmar in Gozo another 24. They're our two most active locations. Alongside the netting, we've raised more than 160 cages of the type used for lobster and octopus. Many of them were still actively trapping animals long after they'd been abandoned.
The diving is technically demanding. Depending on the depth of a recovery, the team runs air, nitrox or trimix on twinsets, and our deepest single recovery was carried out at 57 metres. On an average dive we bring up around two nets. At those depths there's no room to improvise. Every diver on the team runs a Shearwater.
None of the recovered material ends up in landfill. Every net and cage is dismantled by hand: the plastic is recycled, and the lead is melted down and recast into dive weights. Gear that once trapped marine life goes back to work helping us protect it. Xibka remains the only programme of its kind on the island, but it doesn't operate in isolation. A network of dive centres across Malta and Gozo keeps watch and reports new nets as they appear, and we work alongside fishermen to recover lines and gear they've lost, always in a way meant to support rather than to point fingers.
