Georgios Hohlakis is 51 years old, he lives in Crete, he’s working as a fisher for 35 years and owns a trawler along with his family.

He is a part of the “Fishing for Litter” project that takes action in the Gulf of Chania which is in the bay of the Cretan Sea in Northwestern Crete.

R: How many years have you worked as a fisher? How did your occupation with fishing begin?

GH : I have been fishing for 35 years. I started from inshore fishing and 15 years ago I started my business with our trawler “Konstantinos”.

 R: Could you describe a day in the sea?

GH: The day begins by taking out the fish at 4 am. Then, we depart to start fishing and decide on the place we’ll travel to. Usually, during the winter months, we haul the nets twice, until it gets dark and then, always depending on the location we are, we might haul them 2 or 3 more times.

R: What differences do you notice regarding the amount of waste compared to the past?

GH: I have noticed that the amount of waste is bigger than the previous years, even though we’ve collected large amounts of.

R: What kind of waste you’ve collected has made the biggest impression on you?

GH : The strangest thing was a large garbage bin.

R: What does the sea and its protection mean to you?

GH: Sea means life and its protection is our main concern.

R: What is the message you want to pass along the world?

GH:To take care of the sea, it’s not a big garbage dump. We should also respect the environment in general. Another very important thing is to stop overfishing.

iSea’s «Fishing For Litter» project is implemented for 6 years in a row, in lots of different areas in Greece, in collaboration with the A C Laskaridis Charitable Foundation. The ambassadors of this project, the professional fishers who actively support the effort of collecting and recording marine litter from the sea all over the country, talk about the nature of their job and share their experience and thoughts about the project.

We would like to thank all the fishers who cooperated with us, for a more effective implementation of the “Fishing For Litter” project and give a personal touch to this effort.