Google is lending its analytics technology to an environmental research project meant to support the push for more sustainable commercial fishing. The project--Global Fishing Watch--is a collaboration between Google Earth, non-profit digital mapping organization SkyTruth, and marine life advocacy group Oceana. The platform uses satellite data from fishing vessels to map their real-time location as shown below. VIMS Professor John Graves, who chairs the U.S. Advisory Committee to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), says the new project could really help national and international fisheries management organizations. Many of these require each vessel participating in a fishery to have a vessel monitoring system that provides GPS locations, but problems arise when vessels try to fish illegally by not using the system. Satellite based identifications can really help with that, says Graves. Once a vessel has been determined to be participating in illegal fishing, it will be unable to offload or sell its product to ICCAT countries. Furthermore, if this is a pattern for vessels from a particular nation, then ICCAT can place trade restrictive measures on that country. The more technology we can apply to the problem, the better. #GoogleEarth #fisheries
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 02:12:01 +0000
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