Anti Federalist
09-15-2016, 02:03 PM
Prison planet.
How Google is helping to crack down on illegal fishing — from space
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/09/15/from-space-a-new-effort-to-crack-down-on-illegal-fishing-across-the-globe/
Illegal and unreported fishing is a multibillion-dollar business around the globe, and one that has proven notoriously difficult to combat. In part, that’s because it involves a constant stream of renegade fishermen being pursued by countries that have only limited resources to carry out a perpetual cat-and-mouse game on the high seas.
But a new satellite-based surveillance system powered by Google, which will be publicly unveiled Thursday at a global oceans conference at the State Department, aims to help alter that equation. Global Fishing Watch, as it is called, is designed to act as an eye in the sky, constantly scouring the globe in search of those illegally plundering the oceans. The organizations that partnered to develop it, which include the marine-advocacy group Oceana and West Virginia-based nonprofit SkyTruth, say the free platform will help governments, journalists and everyday citizens monitor roughly 35,000 commercial fishing vessels nearly in real time.
“We will be able to see a lot of information about who is fishing where,” said Jacqueline Savitz, vice president for U.S. oceans at Oceana, adding that the platform will help “revolutionize the way the world views commercial fishing.”
The technology uses public broadcast data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS), which uses satellite and land-based receivers to track the movement of ships over time. Not all fishing vessels willingly broadcast their location, of course — particularly those intent on breaking the law — and vessels can switch off their trackers, potentially hindering the usefulness of the new technology. The United States and other countries already require vessels of a certain size to use the locator system, partly as a safety measure to avoid collisions at sea, and more countries are beginning to follow suit. Global Fishing Watch allows users to access that information to track specific vessels over time, going back to 2012.
Savitz said she believes the tool will have an array of uses. Governments could use it to monitor and enforce fishing restrictions in their waters. Journalists and the public can use it to search for suspicious fishing activity, such as vessel that suddenly seems to disappear or one that rarely comes to port, and to make sure officials are safeguarding marine protected areas. Insurance companies can track the vessels they insure.
“We’re hoping it will be useful to a lot of different sectors,” Savitz said.
The use of satellites to patrol environmental activities both on land and at sea has grown steadily in recent years. Early last year, the Pew Charitable Trusts launched a similar technology aimed at helping authorities detect and respond to pirate fishing in the oceans. Known as Project Eyes on the Seas, it was developed alongside a British company and uses various satellite tracking data to help track suspicious vessel movements of fishing ships at sea.
“You can track anything in the world from anywhere in the world,” SkyTruth’s president, John Amos, whose work has helped reshape environmental watchdog efforts, told The Washington Post for a magazine story in 2013.
Global Fishing Watch, which has been under development for two years, has shown flickers of success. The government of the Pacific island nation of Kiribati used it to document how a tuna-fishing vessel had operated illegally inside the Phoenix Islands Protected Area, which had been declared off-limits to commercial fishing in early 2015. The episode resulted in a $1 million fine — a large sum for such a tiny government.
How Google is helping to crack down on illegal fishing — from space
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/09/15/from-space-a-new-effort-to-crack-down-on-illegal-fishing-across-the-globe/
Illegal and unreported fishing is a multibillion-dollar business around the globe, and one that has proven notoriously difficult to combat. In part, that’s because it involves a constant stream of renegade fishermen being pursued by countries that have only limited resources to carry out a perpetual cat-and-mouse game on the high seas.
But a new satellite-based surveillance system powered by Google, which will be publicly unveiled Thursday at a global oceans conference at the State Department, aims to help alter that equation. Global Fishing Watch, as it is called, is designed to act as an eye in the sky, constantly scouring the globe in search of those illegally plundering the oceans. The organizations that partnered to develop it, which include the marine-advocacy group Oceana and West Virginia-based nonprofit SkyTruth, say the free platform will help governments, journalists and everyday citizens monitor roughly 35,000 commercial fishing vessels nearly in real time.
“We will be able to see a lot of information about who is fishing where,” said Jacqueline Savitz, vice president for U.S. oceans at Oceana, adding that the platform will help “revolutionize the way the world views commercial fishing.”
The technology uses public broadcast data from the Automatic Identification System (AIS), which uses satellite and land-based receivers to track the movement of ships over time. Not all fishing vessels willingly broadcast their location, of course — particularly those intent on breaking the law — and vessels can switch off their trackers, potentially hindering the usefulness of the new technology. The United States and other countries already require vessels of a certain size to use the locator system, partly as a safety measure to avoid collisions at sea, and more countries are beginning to follow suit. Global Fishing Watch allows users to access that information to track specific vessels over time, going back to 2012.
Savitz said she believes the tool will have an array of uses. Governments could use it to monitor and enforce fishing restrictions in their waters. Journalists and the public can use it to search for suspicious fishing activity, such as vessel that suddenly seems to disappear or one that rarely comes to port, and to make sure officials are safeguarding marine protected areas. Insurance companies can track the vessels they insure.
“We’re hoping it will be useful to a lot of different sectors,” Savitz said.
The use of satellites to patrol environmental activities both on land and at sea has grown steadily in recent years. Early last year, the Pew Charitable Trusts launched a similar technology aimed at helping authorities detect and respond to pirate fishing in the oceans. Known as Project Eyes on the Seas, it was developed alongside a British company and uses various satellite tracking data to help track suspicious vessel movements of fishing ships at sea.
“You can track anything in the world from anywhere in the world,” SkyTruth’s president, John Amos, whose work has helped reshape environmental watchdog efforts, told The Washington Post for a magazine story in 2013.
Global Fishing Watch, which has been under development for two years, has shown flickers of success. The government of the Pacific island nation of Kiribati used it to document how a tuna-fishing vessel had operated illegally inside the Phoenix Islands Protected Area, which had been declared off-limits to commercial fishing in early 2015. The episode resulted in a $1 million fine — a large sum for such a tiny government.