Page 122 - GIS for Science, Volume 3 Preview

PREVENTING ILLEGAL, UNREPORTED, AND UNREGULATED FISHING
Fish are a crucial global resource, providing the primary source of protein in the diets of as many as 3 billion people worldwide. As much as 12% of the world’s population derives its livelihood from fishing and the seafood industry. But this resource is seriously threatened. As reported by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, human consumption of fish has grown on average about 1.5% per year since 1961. A third of fish stocks are now overfished and no longer biologically sustainable, and about 60% are maximally sustainably fished, with as little as 7% remaining underfished.
OceanMind was founded with the mission to help governments more effectively prevent illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and to help the seafood industry more responsibly comply with regulations, thereby improving the sustainability of fishing. The nonprofit began as a partnership between the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Satellite Applications Catapult, a UK government-funded research and development organization designed to help grow the UK economy through the application of satellite technologies.
Worldwide, fishing fleets collectively include more than four million vessels—a relatively huge number in the even more vast environment of the oceans, where physical borders are often amorphous. These fleets operate in a variety of
jurisdictions. National governments patrol their own coastal waters and usually form treaties to jointly manage nearby areas in between. Regional fisheries management organizations also govern some areas of international waters, while other large areas of the oceans are unregulated. With this complicated situation, it’s challenging to prevent IUU fishing. OceanMind and its partners invest in developing a system to gather satellite data for analyzing the behavior of fishing vessels to help curb illegal fishing.
OceanMind also helps governments and conservation organizations map the intersection between human activity and marine wildlife to inform policy decisions and marine spatial planning.
Mascarene Islands Important Marine Mammal Areas
OceanMind analyzed 115 Important Marine Mammal Areas (IMMAs), studying fishing vessel activity to assess the risk of bycatch, the unintended capture and death of a marine mammal during fishing, and shipping lanes for ship strikes, in which vessels hit a mammal resulting in a fatality. OceanMind provided case studies to highlight risk areas and suggest ways to preserve endangered and charismatic animals.
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