New initiative aims to equip women with skills for work in monitoring, control and surveillance Women in Maritime Africa, South Africa chapter (WIMA-SA), and Global Fishing Watch (GFW) have joined forces in a partnership that seeks to develop technical skills for women in the maritime sector. The collaboration will establish a training program specifically [...]
National Taiwan Ocean University joins forces with Global Fishing Watch to utilize information sharing in the fight against illegal fishing Dr. William Hsu is the Director of the Advanced Computation Laboratory of National Taiwan Ocean University. In October 2015 the European Union executive branch - the European Commission (EC) - issued a [...]
Ocean stewardship begins with sharing information, requires courage and leadership https://youtu.be/ix-3dFvgmKA Martin Exel, managing director of Seafood Business for Ocean Stewardship (SeaBOS), speaks on the importance of the seafood industry's role in promoting transparency and sustainability. Information sharing has the ability to transform fisheries governance. Through increased transparency and cutting-edge technology and analysis, [...]
Global Fishing Watch, PACÍFICO and the Forever Costa Rica Association applaud Costa Rica’s decision to share vessel tracking data and its commitment to enhancing monitoring and control of its waters San José, Costa Rica - The Costa Rican government today announced an agreement to make its vessel tracking data available through Global Fishing Watch [...]
Public interactive portal to help increase understanding and transparency of carrier vessels and their activities. Washington, D.C. — Global Fishing Watch launched a public web portal today that policymakers and fishery managers can use to better understand the activities of vessels that take on catch from commercial fishing vessels and deliver it to ports [...]
NGO collaboration will help fishery managers ensure transfer of catch is both legal and verifiable The transfer of fresh catch from fishing vessels to refrigerated cargo ships is an important but often opaque part of the industrial fishing sector. A new public global monitoring portal is a turning point in efforts to manage this [...]
A carrier vessel is a type of vessel used to transport fish, supplies, and crew to and from fishing vessels, allowing fishing vessels to stay out at sea for longer periods of time. A carrier vessel can receive catch, or ‘tranship’, from one or more fishing vessels at sea or in port and then offload [...]
The data in the portal is created using automatic identification system (AIS) data. AIS transmits a ship’s position so that others can be made aware of its location and avoid potential collision. AIS transmits a ship’s location, speed, direction, and identity information, such as a vessel’s name and flag. Global Fishing Watch uses AIS [...]
The data in the portal currently spans from January 2017 until one month prior to the current date.
The portal displays all carrier vessels demonstrating possible transshipment activity, including encounters and loitering events, with a fishing vessel. It also shows the fishing vessels, or donor vessels, involved in these encounters.
Regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) manage fisheries beyond national jurisdictions. RFMOs are composed of flag States, coastal States, and port States that surround the boundaries of the RFMO’s jurisdiction or have vessels involved in activity within that jurisdiction. There are five RFMOs that focus on the management and conservation of tuna species. They are: Commission [...]
The authorization data is retrieved from public sources regarding both current and historic registration of vessels to the five main tuna regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) : Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT) Inter-American-Tropical-Tuna Commission (IATTC) International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) Western Central [...]
The portal provides greater transparency into the activities of carrier vessels, their authorizations, the regions and ports they most frequent and, to the greatest extent possible, insight into the interactions between fishing vessels and carrier vessel fleets. The portal provides users with the ability to access information or conduct activities such as: View a comprehensively [...]
Encounters may indicate potential transshipment activity between two vessels that both appear on AIS. Encounters are estimated using AIS data, including distance between the two vessels, vessel speeds, and duration in a given area. An encounter is defined as when two vessels, a carrier vessel and encountered fishing vessel, are detected on AIS data as [...]
