The Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands (PLOCAN), as coordinating entity of the European project PHAROS, held today at the San Cristóbal Fishers’ Cooperative (Pescatobal) the FISHER GUARDIANS workshop, an awareness-raising session aimed primarily at the local fishing community—though also open to the general public—to promote the proper management and recycling of end-of-life fishing nets and other marine plastic waste in Gran Canaria.
The activity is the first major open event of the Gran Canaria Living Lab—developed within the framework of the PHAROS project and organised by PLOCAN and the Canary Islands Maritime Cluster—which will take place from today through Saturday in Gran Canaria and Lanzarote, bringing together workshops, panel discussions and seminars focused on ocean health, biodiversity and new opportunities linked to the blue and circular economy.
During today’s workshop, delivered by PLOCAN, Gravity Wave and Pescatobal, participants took a practical look at the environmental impact of abandoned or poorly managed fishing gear and the opportunities offered by a circular-economy model based on traceability, innovation and the involvement of the fishing sector.
The event focused on building trust and knowledge by explaining what happens to end-of-life nets once they are placed in recycling containers, and how they can become a resource within an organised collection and recycling system.
The main objectives of the activity were to raise awareness about the impact of these nets and marine plastic waste; explain the management system in place (containers) for their collection and how it works; strengthen confidence in the process—what happens after delivery; engage fishers as a key stakeholder in the European project beyond their role as users; and showcase innovation and traceability through a demonstration of the Trinamix device, capable of identifying the type of plastic in a net in real time.
“Within PLOCAN’s work as a cutting-edge scientific institution involved in the preservation and conservation of Canary marine ecosystems, through the Pharos project we are implementing the Fisher Guardians programme, through which we are calling on fishers from the San Cristóbal community to take part in this scheme to collect discarded, old or drifting fishing gear and give it a second life by integrating it into a local recycling chain,” explained Pablo Reche, PLOCAN technologist and Pharos project manager.
Gravity Wave, for its part, shared the full flow of the recycling process developed on the Spanish mainland—from the moment fishers deposit the material to its transformation into new raw material—and presented examples and practical case studies.
“We started working on the PHAROS project in 2023, and in 2025 we implemented the idea we had: a pilot project to collect nets and fishing gear, both from the sea and those discarded through fishers’ activity. We installed the first containers in San Cristóbal and they have been a success. Last week we carried out the first collection and removed 220 kilos of nets and fishing gear,” said Amaya Rodríguez, CEO and co-founder of Gravity Wave.
“Now the project is to see what we can do with this—whether it can be recycled in the Canary Islands or whether we take it to the mainland—and apply it to our products in the form of furniture, decorative items… giving it a second life,” she added.
Pescatobal, meanwhile, outlined the benefits of this type of initiative for the local community of fishers, residents and users of the marine environment in San Cristóbal. Dolores Guedes, Head of Administration at the fishers’ cooperative, noted that “from the very moment PLOCAN presented the Pharos project to us, the Cooperative’s fishers viewed it positively. The collection and recycling of nets—something that has never been done in the Canary Islands—can be a project for today and a future for tomorrow.”
She also said that “fishers have participated from the start of the programme in selective collection so that the nets can then be taken to the recycling point. This helps raise awareness within the sector: in addition to being custodians of the sea, they want to prevent nets from ending up in the ocean to avoid accidents involving turtles and other marine wildlife. There is a ‘clean point’ at the port itself where nets are stored, sorted and classified in their containers.”
PHAROS and the Gran Canaria Living Lab
The PHAROS project (funded by the European Union under grant agreement No. 101157936) aims to reduce marine pollution, restore habitats and increase biodiversity, as well as to promote the blue and circular economy through the implementation of Nature-based Solutions (NBS) and the creation of living labs.
In Gran Canaria, PHAROS includes an experiment that combines Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) with the installation of artificial reefs, with implementation planned from 2027, alongside the establishment of living labs in the communities connected to these solutions.
