Transparency is a powerful tool. It improves accountability, facilitates the enforcement of laws and allows an accurate assessment of activities.
Take fishing, for instance. Fishing without transparency cannot be managed sustainably. It can’t be measured; a catch can’t be limited in a meaningful way and rules cannot be enforced. It’s too easy to cheat, and too easy to gloss over unsustainable practices. Without transparency, we would expect fishing to be unsustainable. We’d expect to see overfishing, illegal fishing, and, because of growing capacity and improved technology, massive fishery declines even collapse in some cases. And that is exactly what we have seen: massive global collapse.
Since fishing happens largely in remote locations far from watchful eyes there is a physical cloak of secrecy. Our oceans, due to their size, have allowed bad actors to conceal illegal fishing activities by merely slipping over the horizon and out of sight.
Until now. The shroud of anonymity afforded by the ocean’s vastness has been lifted, at least in part, by technology, including a new online transparency tool called Global Fishing Watch. The tool allows anyone in the world to monitor and track the largest fishing vessels on our oceans globally, in near real-time, for free. I am proud to have led Oceana’s efforts in the development of the tool, along with partners at SkyTruth and Google. At Oceana, we are now using Global Fishing Watch to highlight suspicious activities affecting our oceans to support our campaigns worldwide, and others can do the same. Applying this planet-scale transparency will help us rein in overfishing and illegal fishing in an effort to bring back abundance.
With public data collected by satellites and analyzed in Global Fishing Watch, government officials, journalists, business leaders, fishermen and everyday citizens can monitor commercial fishing activities and identify suspicious behavior from behind a computer screen. This is just the beginning. Global Fishing Watch will continue to improve and increase its power to shed light on this important issue.
At the United Nations Ocean Conference in New York City this past June, two governments announced that they will not only use Global Fishing Watch, but they committed to strengthen it by adding additional data that is currently private. Transparency will increase thanks to data provided by Indonesia’s Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Susi Pudjiastuti. Indonesia made history by being the first country to share its national vessel tracking data in Global Fishing Watch. Pudjiastuti is a champion of transparency at sea.
And after working closely with Oceana, Peru also vowed to publish its private national vessel tracking data in Global Fishing Watch. This is a huge step, as Peru is one of the largest fishing nations in the world.
Peru and Indonesia are taking historic steps. Until now, governments have kept their vessel tracking data private. Global Fishing Watch had to rely solely on publicly available satellite data until Indonesia stepped forward. Combining public and government data gives us a more complete view of what is happening beyond the horizon.
This added level of transparency can not only uncover illegal fishers, it can also help expose suspicious vessel behavior and potential illicit activity. For example, when vessels remain at sea for extended periods of time, it opens the door for offenses beyond overfishing, such as human trafficking and forced labor. With this additional data, governments, enforcement agencies, researchers, journalists, fishers and citizens can better monitor commercial fishing activities and make more informed decisions related to fisheries management.
With nearly half of the world’s population relying on seafood for a significant portion of their animal protein consumption, it is crucial that governments combat illegal fishing and commit to sharing vessel tracking data now. Sharing data in this way can help to improve the health of our oceans, which provide food and jobs for so many people.
Peru and Indonesia are showing the world they are committed to the transparency of their fishing activities, and to protecting our oceans. The future of fisheries management, food security and global economic stability will benefit from increased transparency at sea, but there’s more work to be done. Other countries should follow Indonesia’s and Peru’s lead and publish their vessel tracking data, too. As the United Nations Ocean Conference demonstrated, countries can come together, share information and commit to make specific and measurable changes. This can help improve ocean health, providing food and jobs for billions of people.
2017 © U.S. News & World Report L.P.