Ghanaian woman works on a fish market in Ghana. Anton_Ivanov / Shutterstock.com In West Africa, fishing, fish processing and fish selling are all part of life for many women. Roughly 6.7 million people directly depend on fisheries in the region, which have a landed value of 3.5 billion USD per year. Across West Africa, women form the majority […]
Life Below Water: Sustainable fisheries and gender equality Read More »
Tony Long, Global Fishing Watch Chief Executive Officer, looks back at 2019 and sets a course for 2020 – a pivotal year for ocean governance and conservation. Tony Long, CEO, Global Fishing Watch Reality check From five or ten years out, making sustainability commitments for the end of a decade is a seductive proposition for
Fisheries Analyst, Eloy Aroni Global Fishing Watch recently met with port authorities and offered training on its commercial fishing activity platform in three important Peruvian fishing ports (Paita, Chimbote and Callao). Fisheries Analyst, Eloy Aroni, describes in this blog post how these meetings were an opportunity to discuss data and technology solutions to the main issues affecting
Global Fishing Watch holds workshops with authorities in Peru’s three main fishing ports Read More »
A notorious vessel wanted in several jurisdictions was recently seized by Indonesia. Here’s the story of how international cooperation between INTERPOL, Indonesia, the Government of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (GSGSSI) – UK, Korea and Panama, together with Global Fishing Watch’s vessel tracking expertise, helped make it happen. Lea esta historia en Español aquí.
The capture of the MV NIKA: a case of illicit fishing and a showcase for how to beat it Read More »
Tony Long, CEO, Global Fishing Watch Imagine being told that a vital and valuable resource, found in an area covering almost half the surface of the Earth, was being extracted, with barely any control, by just a handful of wealthy nations. It would hardly sound fair, but that is the reality of industrial fishing on
We were very pleased to complete a three day training session this month in Lima with the Peruvian Ministry of Production’s vessel surveillance division. It was an opportunity for us to share the latest developments on the Global Fishing Watch mapping platform and to get expert feedback from professionals in Peru’s fisheries sector. Since Peru’s public
Global Fishing Watch provides training to Peru’s vessel surveillance group Read More »
Guillermo Ortuño Crespo, member of The Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab at Duke University As the extent and diversity of ocean industries continues to grow, the international community faces the challenging task of accommodating multiple ocean uses while minimizing negative ecological impacts across sectoral industries. Oceanic fisheries have grown exponentially since the aftermath of the Second
Predicting the distribution of the high seas longline fleet Read More »
New data reveals suspected vessel rendezvous at sea and sheds light on the ‘dark’ fleet To mark World Oceans Day, Global Fishing Watch (GFW) has increased ocean transparency by releasing the first-ever ‘live’ global view of likely transshipping at sea — a practice that can mask illegal fishing activity, and imagery of night-time fishing and its location, exposing
Close encounters of the fishy kind Read More »
Costa Rica and Global Fishing Watch (GFW), working with the Asociación Costa Rica por Siempre and the Fundación Pacífico, have entered into an agreement to advance transparency in the country’s fisheries. Costa Rica’s Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Environment and Energy signed a letter of intent on May 2nd to make the
Costa Rica commits to making its fishing fleet visible to the world Read More »
Along with the recent release of our fishing effort data, we are also releasing information on how good AIS coverage is for different parts of the world. That is, in some parts of the ocean, an AIS signal sent by a vessel is very likely to be in our database, and in others, it is less likely
AIS Coverage – Data Coming Soon Read More »
The maritime Automatic Identification System (AIS) is a radio communications system by which vessels continuously broadcast their identity and position over public airwaves using unencrypted VHS radio signals. When it was developed almost 20 years ago, its primary purpose was to increase safety at sea: ships needed a better way to “see” each other and
AIS for Safety and Tracking: A Brief History Read More »
5 years, over 86,000 potential transshipments In early 2017, we released an original report based on analysis of our data that revealed remarkable new insights about what goes on between fishing vessels at sea. The machine learning platform we developed found that over the past five years, there were more than 86,000 potential cases in which fishing
86,490 Points on a Map: All Potential Transshipments Read More »
The no-take marine reserve Motu Maha surrounds the Aukland Islands. 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
MPA Survey Hints at Complexity of Marine Conservation Read More »
It is the quintessential herald of a fishing vessel on the horizon: a swarming congregation of seabirds, gliding and diving in the distance, sun glinting on white wings as a cacophony of cries echoes across the water. Picturesque as it may be, the scene represents one of the largest threats to the survival of many
Mystery Solved: Where Albatrosses and Fishing Vessels Meet at Sea 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 picture of
Tracking Fish and Ships Read More »
