Eric D Galbraith, professor at McGill University and associate faculty at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, shares his journey to a new paper, Growth Limitation of Marine Fish by Low Iron Availability in the Open Ocean, that harnesses Global Fishing Watch data with a healthy dose of collaboration and curiosity. The story of this paper […]
Does iron supply play a role in wild fish? Read More »
Wei Zhou, ocean campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia’s Beijing office, used Global Fishing Watch to understand the impact of recent changes to fisheries policy in China on the extent of fishing in the Chinese EEZ. On September 16, 2017 at noon, over 10,000 fishing vessels based in Zhejiang and Fujian Provinces in China headed out to start
Understanding the Impacts of the Chinese Fishery Moratorium Read More »
Sam Weber worked previously for the Ascension Island Government and is currently at the University of Exeter helping to establish the largest Marine Protected Area in the Atlantic around Ascension Island.
Understanding Fishing Activity Around Ascension Island Read More »
Commercial fishing is an energy-intensive business, and not just for the fishers hauling in the catch. Fishing vessels burn a lot of fuel. In fact, according to Naya Olmer, Marine Program Associate at the International Council on Clean Transportation, industrial-sized commercial fishing vessels are responsible for more than 4 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions released
New Study: Greenhouse Gas Emissions are Rising as Vessel Traffic Grows Read More »
Chris Kerry, a researcher at the University of Exeter in the UK, is using Global Fishing Watch gridded data to understand if seamounts are targeted by fishing vessels and if fishing activity is linked to any specific seamount characteristic. Seamounts, or undersea mountains that rise from the ocean floor, create an environment rich with biodiversity. Yet little is
The Missing Data to Help Protect Seamounts Read More »
Christopher Ewell was an undergraduate student at New York University when he authored a publication on transshipment with Global Fishing Watch’s report, The Global View of Transshipment: Preliminary Findings, as an important source. Is banning transshipment necessary to diminish illegal fishing? It is according to a recent publication in Marine Policy, titled Potential ecological and social
Is banning transshipment necessary to diminish illegal fishing? Read More »
John Marrone is a Tasmanian citizen and recreational fisherman who monitors local Marine Protected Areas via Global Fishing Watch. John Marrone, a Tasmanian recreational fisherman, first became interested in Global Fishing Watch after watching a clip of funder Leonardo DiCaprio on a local news network. Upon hearing DiCaprio speak about Global Fishing Watch, Marrone was
Citizen MPA Monitoring Via Global Fishing Watch Read More »
Dr. Gohar Petrossian of John Jay College of Criminal Justice studies crime at sea. She is using Global Fishing Watch data as part of her effort to understand Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. When most people hear the term “criminology” they think Sherlock Holmes or CSI. Dr. Gohar Petrossian is a criminologist who studies something we at Global
Global Fishing Watch and the Case of the IUU Hotspots Read More »
Marine protected areas (MPAs) are among the best tools we have for conserving biodiversity in the oceans, protecting vulnerable marine life, and providing places of refuge for fish stocks. But do they work? Can vast areas of ocean really be regulated? And if so, what management strategies are most effective?
MPA Survey Hints at Complexity of Marine Conservation Read More »
When two ships meet to transfer goods, it is called transshipment. In the fisheries industry, it is sometimes legal in ports, but usually illegal out at sea where the practice can’t be monitored. [You can read more about it here]. Transshipment can facilitate the mixing of illegal or unreported catch with legal catch, making it
Identifying Transshipment From the Data Read More »
If you’ve grown accustomed to the idea that everything in our world is traceable—from airplanes to cell phones to personal browsing history and purchasing habits—it may seem like a no-brainer that we can use publicly broadcast Automatic Identification System (AIS) signals from ships at sea to find out where they are and what they’re doing. But in
Exploring a New World of Data with Team Member Aaron Roan Read More »
Where do sharks and boats cross paths? What about sea turtles and whales? If we knew this, maybe we could reduce the number of vulnerable marine animals that end up entangled or accidentally caught in fishing gear. After years of monitoring large pelagic sea life with remote tracking devices, researchers have started to build a
Tracking Fish and Ships Read More »
None of what we’re doing at Global Fishing Watch would be possible without the advancements in computing power that have occurred in recent years. The volume of data we work with would have been overwhelming in the past. In one random sample, we observed more than 127,000 vessels over a 24-hour period broadcasting the Automatic
Teaching Machines to Tell Us About Fishing Read More »
Ports provide an important source of information to help us combat Illegal fishing and understand the science and economics of global fisheries. “They serve as the interface between land and sea for fishing vessels,” says Wessley Merten, our data and fisheries analyst at Oceana. “Wherever there’s a port, there’s an interaction. Whether it be offloading
What Ports Can Tell Us Read More »
Occasionally, the AIS messages transmitted from a ship provide a location that makes no sense, say, in the middle of the Antarctic or over a mountain range. In such cases, either the AIS transponder has malfunctioned, the data got scrambled in transmission, or the system has been tampered with in a deliberate attempt to disguise
When Vessels Report False Locations Read More »
