Global Fishing Watch: service for tracking illegal fishing worldwide

Consumption of natural resources (both renewable and not) is progressing at an ever-increasing pace. And if some resources are enough for many more centuries, then others are either completely finished or are running out. Many species can be considered an endangered resource, in particular, commercial fish species.



Due to illegal fishing, some valuable fish are on the verge of extinction. And the problem here is not only that the “food base” of a person is shrinking, so to speak. The main problem is the domino effect for ecosystems. One species has disappeared - problems begin with the species of animals and plants that have come into contact with this species. Poaching in the field of industrial fishing leads to a very rapid decline in fish populations. In general, the organization Oceana , with the help of Google, has developed an interesting service Global Fishing Watch , showing the points of legal and illegal fishing.

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The service itself was designed with financial and engineering support from Google. Using satellite data from SpaceQuest and software from SkyTruth, the system shows the activity of more than 25 thousand fishing vessels, from 2012 to 2013.







Some ships are officially registered fishing vessels, others are clearly poaching vessels. The activity of all types of fishing vessels is highlighted on the map with orange and yellow dots.



It is worth noting that purely financial losses from fishing poachers in 2013 alone amounted, according to approximate calculations, from 10 to 23 billion US dollars . Currently, the service displays only the activity of anglers over the previous 2 years. However, Oceana plans to monitor almost in real time so that authorities in different countries can quickly respond to violations.



Via theverge