Nearly 200 Iranian vessels detected in Somali and Yemeni waters represent one of the world’s largest illegal fishing operations. By Charles Kilgour, director of fisheries analysis, Global Fishing Watch and Duncan Copeland, executive director, Trygg Mat Tracking Global Fishing Watch (GFW) and Trygg Mat Tracking (TMT) have been working with partners in the Northwest [...]
One of world's biggest fishing nations faces economic setbacks, turns to artisanal fleet for food security This is the second blog in a series on the effects of COVID-19 on global fishing activity. Read our initial analysis of changes in global fishing activity during the pandemic here. According to the Global Fishing Watch database, [...]
Meaningful ocean action is needed to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 14, says United Nations Ambassador https://youtu.be/vBJJoYwcv6s Ambassador Peter Thomson, United Nations Secretary General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean, addresses the importance of transparency and technology to achieve SDG-14. The world is at a standstill. Over the last few months, COVID-19 has challenged health systems, [...]
Two months ago, the death of fisheries observer Eritara Aati Kaierua was reported in Pacific waters, leading to an ongoing murder investigation. For many people, the idea of a murder taking place on board a confined fishing vessel out at sea seems inconceivable, but for those that know the fisheries sector well, it is [...]
Large scale, commercial fishing activity has often historically taken place out of sight - fishing grounds far from shore make them difficult and costly to monitor, jurisdiction considerations impede governance and a patchwork of regulations have not kept pace with advances in fishing technologies. As our global seafood consumption has increased, so has the [...]
On March 1st 2020, Indonesian authorities seized five Vietnamese vessels fishing illegally in the North Natuna Sea, located south west of Indonesia’s Natuna Islands, which borders the South China Sea. The successful operation was conducted by patrol vessels from the Indonesian Directorate General (DG) of Surveillance (PSDKP) of The Ministry of Marine Affairs and [...]
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 [...]
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) set ambitious targets to address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, hunger, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation and decent work. SDG 14; Life Below Water, will be in the spotlight throughout 2020 as States come together at multiple international meetings to create [...]
by Nicola Frost, Tony Long, Stephanie Juwana and Mansi Konar When the UN launched the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) five years ago, the world aligned around the need to end illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing by 2020 (SDG 14.4). Seen then as an achievable target, it is now a deadline we’re going to miss. IUU fishing accounts for [...]
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. Reality check From five or ten years out, making sustainability commitments for the end of a decade is a seductive proposition for governments and sectors of all [...]
Gabriel Englander, PhD candidate, University of California, Berkeley. Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics. Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) are perhaps the largest property rights institution in the world, covering about 39% of the ocean’s surface and accounting for more than 95% of global marine fish catch. Because assigning property rights can improve both ecological [...]
The first-ever satellite mapping of fishing vessel behaviours has identified that very few vessels are using one of the key techniques to avoid accidentally killing albatrosses. Researchers hope a new analytics tool demonstrates that satellite data can help monitor efforts to reduce seabird mortality in fishing operations, and drive more transparency in general in the global fishing [...]
With increased transparency, we can see beyond the horizon and address the threats facing our oceans. Global Fishing Watch’s (GFW) mapping platform increases the transparency of commercial fishing activities worldwide, empowering Oceana and others to expose problems that were once out of sight, far from our coasts. Oceana analysts, part of Oceana’s Illegal Fishing [...]
Camellia Williams is a Lead Writer at Vizzuality. See her original blog post here. We love hearing stories about people changing the world with the things we help make. This month we were contacted by Luli Masera. Luli is the co-founder of the Marine Conservation programme of Tompkins Conservation in Argentina and she had some extremely [...]
The Cocos Island National Park (CINP) is located in the Eastern Tropical Pacific, 532 km southwest of Costa Rica. Consisting of a 24 square km island and a 1,989 square km marine area, including a 12 nautical mile no-take zone surrounding the island, it was declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1997 [...]
