News & Views

Fisheries Transparency

Seafood Sector Can Benefit from Fisheries Transparency

Fisheries, News & Views / By

Ocean stewardship begins with sharing information, requires courage and leadership 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

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Potential encounters and loitering events of an authorized Liberian-flagged carrier vessel

Transshipment Monitoring Portal Brings Transparency to Fishing Industry

News & Views / By

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 activity. 

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Chinese lighting vessels

International Cooperation Uncovers Large-Scale Illegal Fishing, Highlights Need for More Multinational Efforts

Data and technology, Fisheries, Impacts, News & Views, Research and analysis / By

Experts from four countries joined forces to find out the real cause behind drastic decline in squid catch   A Global Fishing Watch-led study uncovers what is possibly the largest ever documented case of illegal fishing by vessels originating from one country operating in another nation’s waters, leading to significant ramifications. The story behind the research

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Illegal fishing by dark fleets in north korea

New Technology Unveils Massive Illegal Fishing by Dark Fleets in North Korea, What Next?

Data and technology, Fisheries, Impacts, News & Views, Research and analysis / By

International collaboration and new technology shows unprecedented picture of fishing activity in North Korea, calls on nations to take action In the 30th issue of Science Advances Global Fishing Watch, along with 13 other co-authors, published a study revealing widespread illegal fishing in North Korean waters across 2017 and 2018. Hundreds of large, industrial vessels

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Iranian gillnet fishing vessel in Berbera harbour in 2015

Illegal Fishing Hotspot Identified in Northwest Indian Ocean

Impacts, News & Views, Policy & Compliance, Research and analysis / By

Nearly 200 Iranian vessels detected in Somali and Yemeni waters represent one of the world’s largest illegal fishing operations. Global Fishing Watch (GFW) and Trygg Mat Tracking (TMT) have been working with partners in the Northwest Indian Ocean region, including the Somali government, to identify large-scale illegal fishing that is occurring inside the waters of

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Fisheries activity

Peruvian Fisheries Experience Massive Decline in Activity from COVID-19

Fisheries, News & Views, Policy & Compliance / By

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, fishing

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Peter Thomson

Life Below Water: Transparency and Innovation will Help Build Ocean Resilience

News & Views, Policy & Compliance / By

Meaningful ocean action is needed to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 14, says United Nations Ambassador 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, crippled economies,

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aerial vessel

Illuminating global fishing activity with satellite AIS

Data and technology, Impacts, News & Views, Research and analysis / By

This article was produced and first published by our data partner, Spire Global. Transparency in a whole new light In February this year, a Vietnamese ship entered Indonesian waters, likely fished illegally, and then returned to port without consequence. By March, it was back at sea. There were no signs to indicate that the vessel

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fishing data

Track and trace: transparent and digitized fishing data is crucial to ocean resilience

Data and technology, Fisheries, Impacts, News & Views, Transparency / By

Recovery from COVID-19 will require greater transparency in commercial fishing activity As the global COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold, its myriad negative consequences are slowly becoming clearer. While many of the impacts have been unmistakable, with entire countries locked down, some are playing out far away from our homes and shorelines, in the open ocean. 

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Life below water

Life Below Water: Prioritizing safe and decent working conditions for fishers and fisheries observers

Fisheries, News & Views, Policy & Compliance / By

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 yet

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earth ocean

New Partnership Aims to Build a Better Understanding of the Ocean

Data and technology, News & Views / By

Paul Woods, chief innovation officer with Global Fishing Watch and Mogens L. Mathiesen, SVP, head of strategy and partnerships with the Ocean Data Foundation share their ambition on Earth Day (April 22) for a new partnership to harness the current explosion in new data and technology for better management of the ocean.   In this

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Subsistence fisher returning in Kiritimati Island.

Life Below Water: Ensuring sustainable consumption and production of seafood

Fisheries, News & Views, Policy & Compliance / By

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 impact

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Oil platforms or wind farms Radar Detections

Towards a Radar-Illuminated Ocean

Data and technology, News & Views, Research and analysis / By

At Global Fishing Watch, we use cutting-edge technology to visualize, track and share data about global fishing activity in near real-time and for free. Our primary dataset comes from data about a vessel’s identity, type, location, speed, direction and more that is broadcast using the Automatic Identification System (AIS) and collected via satellites and terrestrial

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