Inside the mission to track global fishing | BBC News
Global Fishing Watch uses satellite technology and AI to track fishing vessels worldwide, revealing illegal activities like unauthorized fishing and sanction violations. Their transparent monitoring has led to behavioral changes, including perfect compliance with fishing seasons after violations were exposed.
Summary
Global Fishing Watch is a nonprofit organization that has spent over a decade using advanced technology to monitor ocean activity and combat issues like illegal fishing, sanction breaking, and human rights abuses at sea. The organization tracks vessels using AIS (Automatic Identification System) data collected from satellites, then applies machine learning and artificial intelligence models to determine vessel locations, fishing activities, and gear types. This information is made publicly available through high-resolution maps that support governments and enforcement agencies. Many vessels attempt to evade detection by turning off their transponders or broadcasting false locations, particularly oil tankers carrying sanctioned oil. The organization has documented significant cases, including Chinese squid fleets fishing near the Galápagos Islands' protected waters in 2020, which showed dramatic behavioral improvements from 2021 onward. Their vessel tracking capabilities can identify individual ships and detect encounters between vessels that may indicate crew or fish exchanges, which correlates with risks of poor working conditions and forced labor. While their AI models provide detailed location and activity data, human analysts must determine the legality of actions. The organization has achieved notable enforcement successes, including cases where they identified vessels fishing before authorized seasons, leading to sanctions and subsequent perfect compliance the following year.
Key Insights
- Oil tankers carrying sanctioned oil frequently turn off their AIS transponders or broadcast false locations to avoid detection when entering prohibited ports
- The Chinese squid fleet was extremely active fishing right up to the boundary of the Galápagos EEZ in 2020, but showed a significant positive shift in activity from 2021 onwards
- Encounters between vessels shown as diamonds on tracking timelines correlate with risks of poor working conditions and forced labor on fishing vessels
- AI models can identify vessel locations, fishing activities, and gear types, but human analysts must determine whether the activities are legal or illegal
- After authorities sanctioned vessels for fishing one day early using Global Fishing Watch data, the following year showed perfect compliance with all vessels waiting until the exact minute the season opened
Topics
Transcript
[0:12] Human activity at sea is vast and constantly changing. But what happens on the ocean remains largely unseen. Commercial and fishing vessels are required under international law to be fitted with systems that transmit data showing where they are. But many vessels simply do not broadcast their location, effectively going dark. >> Well, there are lots of reasons to turn the transponder off. We know that uh [0:43] oil tankers that are um hauling uh oil, which is subject to sanctions, will often turn their their AS transponders off. They will also um sometimes broadcast false locations, so they'll make it look like they're somewhere other than where they actually are. So that way when they go into a…
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