Latest news with #GlobalFishingWatch
Scoop
5 days ago
- Science
- Scoop
New Research: Satellite Imagery Detects Illegal Fishing Activity, Shows Strict Protections Work
Washington, D.C. (July 24, 2025) — New peer-reviewed research in the journal Science demonstrates the power of strict legal bans against industrial fishing in marine protected areas (MPAs). The analysis — which combines satellite imagery and artificial intelligence technology to detect previously untraceable vessels — reveals that most of the globe's fully and highly protected MPAs successfully deter illegal fishing. The study is the first of its kind to demonstrate that the most strictly protected marine reserves are well respected and are not simply 'paper parks.' The study, 'Little-to-no industrial fishing occurs in fully and highly protected marine areas' finds that: 78.5% of the 1,380 MPAs studied had no commercial fishing activity; Of the MPAs where satellite images detected illegal fishing activity, 82% of them averaged less than 24 hours of activity per calendar year; Strongly protected MPAs had, on average, nine times fewer fishing vessels per square kilometer than unprotected coastal areas; and MPAs designated as strictly-protected with significant fishing activity included those in the Chagos Marine Reserve, the South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (combined with the Great Barrier Reef Coast Marine Park), each with approximately 900 hours per year. 'Because strictly protected marine areas discourage illegal fishing, fishes are far more abundant within their boundaries, they produce more babies, and help replenish surrounding areas,' remarked Enric Sala, one of the study's co-authors, a National Geographic Explorer in Residence, and founder of Pristine Seas. 'In other words, the fishing industry benefits from following the rules.' Illegal fishing poses a significant global threat, jeopardising both the health of ocean ecosystems and the economic stability of the fishing industry. Scientific evidence shows that strictly protected MPAs restore marine life within their boundaries, improve local fishing, provide jobs and economic benefits, and build resilience against a warming ocean. But when MPAs are minimally or lightly protected, the benefits practically disappear. 'The ocean is no longer too big to watch. With cutting-edge satellites and AI, we're making illegal fishing visible and proving that strong marine protections work,' said Juan Mayorga, a scientist with Pristine Seas and co-author of the study. To arrive at their conclusions, researchers analysed five billion vessel positions from the Automatic Identification Systems (AIS), a GPS-based safety signal transmitted by many industrial fishing vessels, and paired this with satellite images generated by Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), which can detect vessels regardless of weather or light conditions. The combination of the datasets — and the use of AI models developed by Global Fishing Watch — allowed researchers to detect the majority of fishing vessels over fifteen meters long, including so-called dark vessels that do not broadcast their location and often operate to evade detection. 'No single dataset can solve the challenge of monitoring fishing activity at sea; each has its blind spots,' asserted Mayorga. 'But when we combine them, their power emerges. By fusing AIS tracking with satellite radar imagery and AI, we are now much closer to the full picture of human activity across the ocean. That's especially important in the crown jewels of the ocean — the world's most strongly protected areas — where the stakes for enforcement and biodiversity are highest.' Researchers found that the AIS data missed almost 90% of SAR-based fishing vessel detections within these MPAs. Inaccurate data, limited resources and the vastness of the ocean have made effectively monitoring MPAs for industrial fishing a challenge. This groundbreaking methodology offers a powerful new way to assess fishing compliance and bridge blind spots in current monitoring methods, the authors found. 'By using satellites to track fishing vessels, countries can predict the locations of illegal activities and target patrol efforts, saving both manpower and money,' said Jennifer Raynor, the study's lead author and a professor of natural resource economics in UW–Madison's Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology. A growing body of research shows that MPAs produce spillover of fishes and invertebrates that increases the catches of species from small and sedentary (lobsters, scallops) to large and migratory (tuna). A 2024 study revealed that fishing catch per unit effort increases, on average, 12% to 18% near the boundaries of large fully protected MPAs. 'Illegal fishing takes place in areas of the ocean set aside for protection, but using satellites we have found — for the first time ever — that the level of protection determines how much risk industrial fishers are willing to take on,' Sala remarked. 'Fully and highly marine protected areas discourage illegal fishing. The stricter the rules in place to conserve ocean areas, the more benefits nations receive — including more fish to be caught outside protected areas' boundaries.' National Geographic Pristine Seas Pristine Seas works with Indigenous and local communities, governments, and other partners to help protect vital places in the ocean using a unique combination of research, community engagement, policy work, and filmmaking. Since 2008, our program has conducted nearly 50 expeditions around the world and helped establish 30 marine reserves, spanning more than 6.9 million square kilometers of ocean. Pristine Seas is part of the global non-profit, the National Geographic Society. Our mission is driven by science and filmmaking — we are fully independent from National Geographic publishing and its media arm.
New York Times
5 days ago
- Science
- New York Times
Where Do Untraceable Fishing Fleets Go?
For centuries, the oceans have been a notoriously lawless place. And today's industrial fishing vessels can sometimes be sneaky, turning off public tracking devices for months at a time or altering their signals to give a false location. Recent advancements in satellite technology have made it possible to detect more of these ships that may be trying to hide. Known as 'dark vessels,' they make up at least 70 percent of all fishing fleets on the ocean. Two research groups used this data, provided by the nonprofit Global Fishing Watch, to track truant ships across millions of kilometers of so-called marine protected areas, zones officially designated by countries as part of international goals to protect 30 percent of oceans by 2030. Their studies, published Thursday in Science, offer the first answers to a longstanding question: Do these protections work? 'When most people think of protected areas, they assume it bans industrial fishing as a bare minimum of protection that a place would offer,' said Jennifer Raynor, an assistant professor of natural resource economics at the University of Wisconsin and lead author of one of the studies. 'But that's not necessarily true.' Only 8 percent of the ocean is protected by these zones, and most do not explicitly ban industrial fishing. According to Marine Protection Atlas, less than 3 percent of the ocean fully bans industrial-scale activities, like trawling or deep sea mining. Global Fishing Watch's tool uses satellite radar technology, which can scan through clouds and detect large metal objects on Earth, as a way to reveal oceangoing vessels that don't broadcast their location. One group found that two-thirds of all fishing fleets in protected areas were untracked by conventional means. Dr. Raynor and her co-authors analyzed nearly 1,400 protected zones with explicit bans on industrial fishing. They found about five fishing vessels per 100,000 square kilometers at any given satellite sighting, compared with 42 in unprotected coastal waters. About 30 percent of the area they studied showed one day of fishing or less in a given year. But because many of the unique designated zones are small, the vast majority of marine protected areas have almost no fishing activity. That's good news, she said, because it suggests illegal poaching in these zones is 'surprisingly rare.'Some larger protected areas also had less fishing than expected. In Australia's Great Barrier Reef, which bans industrial fishing in about a third of its 350,000 square kilometers, the researchers detected an average of 900 hours. In the Chagos Archipelago, an expanse encompassing several small island atolls in the Indian Ocean, the study also confirmed reports of illegal fishing. There, in an expanse nearly six times as large as the protected part of the Great Barrier Reef, fleets spent 2,700 hours, or about 112 days a year. The second study, lead by Raphael Seguin, a Ph.D. student studying marine ecology at the University of Montpellier, France, shows that while protections appear to be working on paper, it may not necessarily be because fishing vessels are trying to abide by the rules. The marine protected areas with the strictest restrictions are often located in areas that already were too coastal or remote to be industrial fishing hot spots, he said. Mr. Seguin's analysis found that two-thirds of all industrial fishing fleets in 6,000 protected areas were untracked. Nearly half of all marine protected areas included in his study showed industrial fishing activity, in many cases matching unprotected waters nearby. Dr. Seguin said this indicates the need for more marine protected areas with stricter standards. Otherwise, he said, countries are just creating 'paper parks,' a phrase used by researchers to describe protected zones where the restrictions aren't effective. Fleets can break the rules in other ways, too. According to Dr. Raynor's analysis, a type of fishing net known as gill nets are allowed in the Camargue, a protected zone off the coast of France, but nearly 100 percent of fishing there is likely done by bottom-trawling, which is banned. Boris Worm, a marine ecologist professor at the University of Dalhousie in Canada, reviewed the studies but was not affiliated with them, and said that together they show protections can work well, but more are needed. He said that well protected areas can revive commercially important fish stocks, as well as protect pristine ones. Two decades of strict protections around the Galápagos brought an added bonus for tuna fishers who lined up at the edge of the reserve boundary, he said. 'They're reaping the benefits of tuna being relatively unbothered within the reserve,' Dr. Worm said. 'It's like you're turning on the tap inside, and at some point it starts overflowing.' Dr. Raynor said the monitoring advancements have been a 'game changer in how much we understand about the ocean, even beyond protected areas.' Previously countries primarily kept track of large boats on the ocean through a transponder-like identification system, though not all vessels are required to use them. Last week, Global Fishing Watch announced an upgrade to its satellite monitoring database, which can detect smaller vessels and collect more information about their activities. 'It's such a change from history,' Dr. Worm said, 'when the things that humans did on the oceans went largely unseen.'
Miami Herald
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Vietnam Intercepts China Research Ship Near Coast
Vietnam recently deployed a ship to intercept a Chinese survey vessel operating off its east coast, according to ship tracking data. The Chinese vessel spent much of the second half of June within Vietnam's maritime zone, in what Hanoi says is a violation of its sovereignty. Vietnam is one of several countries in the region with overlapping claims in the South China Sea, through which as much as one-third of global shipping passes each year. Beijing's sovereignty claims, which extend across most of the strategic waterway, have been a persistent source of tension with Vietnam and other countries in the region, as have Chinese coast guard, paramilitary, and research activities in the maritime zones of China's neighbors. Newsweek reached out to the Chinese embassy in Vietnam by email with a request for comment. Open-source data from Global Fishing Watch's ship-tracking platform shows that the Bei Diao 996, a twin-hulled research vessel, departed China's southernmost province of Hainan on June 10. From that point until July 4, the ship remained within or just outside Vietnam's exclusive economic zone (EEZ)-an area extending 230 miles from the country's coastline, where foreign fishing and survey activities are prohibited under maritime law without Vietnam's permission. For much of this period, the vessel conducted what appeared to be a hydrographic survey, repeatedly crossing into the EEZ in a "lawnmower pattern" commonly seen in seafloor mapping. On June 19, the Vietnamese fisheries vessel Kiem Ngu 471 can be seen departing from the coast and making a beeline for Bei Diao 996. The vessel spent the rest of June shadowing the Chinese ship, only leaving the area last week after Bei Diao 996 set a course back toward Hainan last week. "Vietnam's sustained response demonstrates its concern over China's intrusive survey tactics," said Ray Powell, director of the Stanford University-affiliated maritime analysis group SeaLight, who flagged the ship tracks on X (formerly Twitter). Vietnamese foreign ministry spokesperson Pham Thu Hang pointed out during a press conference Thursday that foreign research and survey operations conducted within the country's EEZ are "violations of its sovereignty and jurisdiction" under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. At nearly 330 feet long and displacing 7,384 tons, Bei Diao 996 is outfitted to test deep-sea equipment, according to the state-owned China Classification Society. Analysts have previously flagged Chinese research vessels engaging in suspicious activities and warned they may be gathering intelligence-such as information on undersea cables or nearby military assets-that could strengthen China's strategic position in the region. Bei Diao 996's movements come against a backdrop of maritime friction between China and Vietnam. Hanoi bristled earlier this year after Beijing again announced an annual fishing ban covering waters within the EEZs of Vietnam, the Philippines, and several other neighbors. Vietnam has also protested China's move in 2024 and again this year to unilaterally introduce new territorial baselines in the Gulf of Tonkin in a bid to redefine its jurisdictional boundaries. Jun Kajee, lecturer at Southern Utah University and a research fellow at the Korea Institute for Maritime Strategy, wrote in a report published by SeaLight last month: "Routine Chinese survey operations in the South China Sea, East China Sea, and Taiwan Strait are no longer isolated events-they have become a defining feature of the region's maritime landscape. "These missions, often met with diplomatic protests from countries like Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan, consistently raise tensions and test the resolve of neighboring states to defend their own maritime claims." China has yet to publicly respond to Vietnam's protest. Chinese maritime activities, including surveys and coast guard patrols in disputed areas, are likely to remain a point of friction in the South China Sea. Related Articles Map Shows 'Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone' Backed by Russia and ChinaUS Flexes Air Power With Ally in Contested South China SeaThe Limits of the New Anti-Western Axis | OpinionChina Military Uses Laser on US Ally's Aircraft: What to Know 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Business Wire
16-06-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Only Four of the Largest 30 Tuna Fishing Companies Disclose Catch Data, Exposing Investors to Supply Chain Risk
LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--New research from Planet Tracker reveals for the first time the actual catch of the world's 30 largest tuna harvesters despite their highly opaque disclosures. The study, Tuna Turner: Investors Must Turn Up Transparency in the Tuna Industry, trawls Global Fishing Watch data to reconstruct catch volumes by species and region for all 2,153 industrial vessels fishing tuna globally. The research attributes these details for the first time to companies and the countries they are headquartered, aiming to fill in the gaps in company disclosure. The report focuses on the 30 largest harvesters of tuna globally – the 'Tuna 30*' – accounting for 46% of global tuna catch. Only four out of 30 firms report any tuna catch volumes, with even lower transparency on species caught, location, catch methods and certification levels: just one of the 30 companies – Bolton Group – discloses this data. Without knowing what, where, how much and how companies fish, investors cannot know which of them are most exposed to sustainability risks. Whilst most tuna stocks are not overfished, tuna biomass has declined by 40% to 80%. And, major ecological damage persists in numerous tuna fisheries. The Tuna 30 overall extract 12% of their catch from stocks that are not at healthy levels of abundance or that are experiencing or might experience overfishing. Planet Tracker estimates that over 40% of the harvest from SAPMER, China National Agricultural Development Group and Maruha Nichiro comes from such stocks. Several tuna species are threatened with extinction. The research finds that Albacora, Maruha Nichiro, Dongwon, Bolton Group and Sajo are likely harvesters of these threatened species. Planet Tracker also finds that 56% of the Tuna 30's catch is 'dark', meaning it could not be associated to a company due to missing ownership information or satellite data. Further, most Tuna 30 companies may be spending more time fishing with their Automatic Identification System (AIS) switched off than on. The study estimates that better data on ownership information and eliminating these AIS gaps could improve profits and valuations in the industry by an average of 0.6% and 1% respectively within five years. Francois Mosnier, Head of Nature at Planet Tracker, said: 'Better transparency, in the form of corporate disclosure on catch and AIS usage, is crucial to help investors understand the exact risks their portfolios are exposed to. We cannot distinguish good behaviour from bad behaviour without first knowing what is actually being caught, where and how on a company-by-company basis.' Planet Tracker urges investors to demand full disclosure from tuna companies on catch data and AIS compliance as a baseline for responsible investment. Notes to editor: *Planet Tracker used Global Fishing Watch data to create a database of 736,000 'likely tuna' fishing events for the year 2022, to analyse 2,153 vessels catching tuna. About Planet Tracker Planet Tracker is an award-winning non-profit financial think tank aligning capital markets with planetary boundaries. Created with the vision of a financial system that is fully aligned with a net-zero, resilient, nature positive, and just economy well before 2050, Planet Tracker generates break-through analytics that reveal both the role of capital markets in the degradation of our ecosystem and show the opportunities of transitioning to a zero-carbon, nature positive economy.
BBC News
13-06-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
UN Ocean conference gives 'glimmer of hope' for marine life
The UN Ocean conference has been heralded a success, with more countries ratifying a key treaty to protect marine life and more progress on curbing plastics and illegal fishing in our 200 countries came together in Nice, France to discuss how to tackle the most pressing issues facing the oceans. The conference ends world's seas are facing threats on multiple fronts from plastic pollution to climate change. Sir David Attenborough said ahead of the conference that he was "appalled" by the damage from certain fishing methods and hoped leaders attending would "realise how much the oceans matter to all of us". The key aim was to get the High Seas Treaty ratified by 60 countries to bring it into force. The agreement was signed two years ago to put 30% of the ocean into protected areas. Fifty countries had ratified by Friday, but dozens more promised to ratify by the end of the year. This and other progress on plastics and illegal fishing appears to have restored faith in the ability of governments to work together."UNOC has given us a glimmer of hope that the challenges facing our ocean are being seen and will be tackled," said Tony Long, chief executive officer of Global Fishing Watch."As we edge closer to the High Seas Treaty coming into force, governments need to double down - using both transparency and new technologies - to safeguard the ocean," he to the UN Oceans Conference confidence in the multilateral process for solving the world's most pressing issues was 2024, key negotiations on biodiversity, plastics and climate collapsed or concluded with limited aim of the meeting was not to sign a new legally-binding agreement but make progress on previous years ago, countries agreed to protect 30% of land and sea by 2030 to support international waters this is hard to achieve as there is no clear controlling nation. So, in 2023 countries signed the High Seas Treaty agreeing to put 30% of these waters into marine protected is the UN High Seas Treaty and why is it needed?Prior to the conference only 27 out of the 60 states needed to bring it into force had ratified. Over just a few days that figure jumped to 50 and countries, including the UK, agreed it would ratify by the end of the is record time for a UN agreement, explained Elizabeth Wilson, senior director for environmental policy at environmental NGO The Pews Trust."We have worked on many different treaties over the years and ratification often takes five years, seven years. "So the fact the High Seas Treaty is on the cusp of it entering into force really shows the global momentum behind working to protect more of the high seas," she nations including the US and China have not ratified the treaty although they are signatories, indicating their intention to do so in the Russia, which has never supported it because of concerns over its impact on fisheries, said on Friday it would continue with that US diplomats experienced in UN negotiations praised the progress."From progress on the High Seas Treaty to French Polynesia's marine protected area, UNOC provided the latest proof that when we work together, real accomplishment is possible," said John Kerry, former US Secretary of State and Climate Envoy. More countries also came forward with promises to put their own national waters into marine protected areas (MPAs) and restrict the most harmful fishing the week the UK announced it would seek to ban bottom trawling in nearly a third of English MPAs. This has been long been a demand of environmental charities, and more recently Sir David Attenborough, who argue that without such bans the protection just exists on largest ever marine protected area was also launched by French Polynesia in its own waters, and 900,000 sq km of that will ban extractive fishing and mining - four times the size of the this commitment and others made during the conference, 10% of the oceans are now in protection. "This is sending a message to the world that multilateralism is important," Astrid Puentes told R4's Today programme on the final day. "We need this leadership. The ocean is a single biome in the planet, it is all connected so we absolutely need to strengthen international law," she progress on limiting destructive fishing practices globally has been difficult without the participation of China - which operates the largest fleet in the at the conference its government announced it had now ratified the Port State Measures Agreement - a legal commitment to eliminate illegal and unregulated fishing. Despite French President Macron opening the conference with a stark warning on the threats from deep sea mining, countries remained split on the week 2,000 scientists recommended to governments that all deep sea exploration be paused whilst further research is carried out; just 0.001% of the seabed has been this only 37 countries heeded the advice and have called for a moratorium on deep sea mining. "More and more states need to call for a moratorium on seabed mining so that we have this regulatory framework in place before any mining activities can happen," said Pradeep Singh, an environmental lawyer and marine expert with the Oceano Azul Trump abandoned the idea of a global approach in April when he declared that the US administration would start issuing permits for the activity. But Mr Singh thinks even without calling for a ban most countries do not support the US approach. At the final meeting of the conference countries passed the Nice Ocean Action Plan summarising their commitments. The issue of plastic pollution is one that is particularly profound for the oceans, but in December talks on reducing the levels of production broke are nearly 200 trillion pieces in the ocean and this is expected to triple by 2040 if no action is the physical plastic and the chemicals within them is life-threatening to marine animals, said Bethany Carney Almroth, Professor of Ecotoxicology at the University of Gothenburg."There are more than 16,000 chemicals that are present in plastics, and we know that more than 4,000 of those have hazardous properties, so they might be carcinogenic, or mutagenic, or reproductively toxic," she said. At the conference ministers from 97 countries, including the UK, signed a joint political statement saying they wanted an ambitious treaty to be signed on the this only included one of the top ten oil-producing nations - Canada. Plastic is made from oil, so any commitment to reduce production could harm their income, the countries oil production is also crucial if countries want to see a drop in planet-warming emissions and limit the worst impacts of climate oceans are at the forefront of this - 90% of the additional heat put into the atmosphere by humans has been absorbed by the oceans, leading to increasingly destructive marine conference did not see any new commitments on reducing emissions, but poorer nations did push their richer counterparts to release previously promised money for climate action more quickly."I share the frustration of many small island developing nations in terms of the non responsiveness of international financial facilities," said Feleti Teo, prime minister of Tuvalu."We don't have influence to change their policies but we need to sustain the pressure, meetings of this sort give us the opportunity to continue to tell the story." 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