DiCaprio unveils free technology to spy on global fishing

The release of Global Fishing Watch coincides with the Our Oceans Conference hosted by US Secretary of State John Kerry in Washington on September 15 and 16.

It aims to offer a crowd sourced solution to the problem of illegal fishing, which accounts for up to 35 per cent of the global wild marine catch and causes yearly losses of $23.5 billion, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

Overfishing is also a growing problem worldwide, with about two-thirds of fish stocks in the high seas either over exploited or depleted, said the FAO. Some of the planet's largest fish, including tuna and swordfish, are below 10 per cent of their historical level.

Using satellite technology combined with radar aboard boats, the site GlobalFishingWatch.org allows people to zero in on areas of interest around the world and trace the paths of 35,000 commercial fishing vessels.

"It gives the public an opportunity to see what is happening, even out in the middle of the ocean," said John Amos, president and founder of SkyTruth, one of three partners in the project along with Google and Oceana.

"We need the public to be engaged to convince governments and convince the seafood industry that they need to solve the problems of overfishing," Amos told AFP.

"If you can't see it and can't measure it, you are not going to care about it and it is not going to get solved."

 

DiCaprio-funded 

The project has cost $10.3 million over the past three years to build, with six million of those dollars contributed by DiCaprio himself, Oceana vice president for US oceans Jackie Savitz told AFP.

In order the make the data available for free, the partners negotiated a deal with the satellite company Orbcomm to use its three-day old data, which is described as "near real-time," along with historical records.

Although the delay means that any criminals won't be nabbed instantaneously, advocates say the technology will open the world's waters to public watchdogs in a way that has never been done before.

"We think it is going to have a lot of impact, first of all just the deterrent effect of vessels knowing that we could see them if they are doing something they are not supposed to be doing," Savitz said. 

"You can look at an area you are interested in, zoom in and see what data we have."

- AFP