Papua New Guinea
Promoting ocean transparency together
Our collaboration with Papua New Guinea formally began in October 2022, when the National Fisheries Authority, supported by the Fishing Industry Association agreed to publish fishing data for its purse seine vessels on the Global Fishing Watch map. This decision reflected the Pacific island country’s desire to enhance the monitoring of its fisheries and increase the transparency of its seafood supply chain.
Papua New Guinea is the first Pacific nation to publish its vessel monitoring system data with Global Fishing Watch. The partnership will allow Papua New Guinea to maximize insights from the monitoring platform and receive specialized training to build capacity within their monitoring, control and surveillance team.
Since June 2023, around 50 purse seine vessels, all members of the Fishing Industry Association, have been visible on the Global Fishing Watch map—a testament to Papua New Guinea’s commitment to increasing accountability across the fishing sector and the effective management of fisheries and marine resources for sustainable and equitable benefits.
The publicly visible vessels are authorized to operate within Papua New Guinea’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), as well as the waters of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement. Papua New Guinea’s waters cover just over 926,600 square miles (2.4 million square kilometers) and are home to some of the most productive tuna fisheries in the world.
With a coastline of more than 3,200 miles (5,150 kilometers), Papua New Guinea has an extensive and valuable fisheries sector ranging from inland river fisheries, aquaculture, and coastal and reef fisheries to the prawn trawl and large-scale deepwater tuna fisheries. The fishing industry includes artisanal fishers, tuna longline operators and large international purse seine fleets in the deepwater tuna fishery.
Related Experts
Chief Program Officer
Sharing fishing vessel data
since June 2023
50+
monitored vessels
3,200 miles
coastline
How we support Papua New Guinea
Our collaboration is focused on supporting the National Fisheries Authority and the Fishing Industry Association to enhance their monitoring capabilities by providing insights and analysis of their vessel tracking data.
Papua New Guinea’s government plan is to bring more fishing vessels into its national waters, expand the membership of the Fishing Industry Association and share more vessel data with Global Fishing Watch.
In addition to sharing their vessel monitoring data, the Fishing Industry Association supports the work that Global Fishing Watch is undertaking more widely in the region to explore how vessel information can be used to develop risk models to identify forced labor on fishing vessels.
“Transparency across all aspects of the tuna fisheries is crucial to ensuring that the fish we eat is caught legally, ethically and sustainably.”
“Our tuna fishery is one of the largest in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean and represents a key source of protein for more than 9 million people in Papua New Guinea. Taking care of our tuna stocks is a priority, and with support from Global Fishing Watch’s monitoring technology, we can strengthen enforcement, contribute to regional collaboration to eliminate illegal fishing and also demonstrate our commitment to promoting food security and the blue economy.”