Global Fishing Watch

Global Fishing Watch uses satellite technology, big data analytics, and machine learning, to illuminate the world’s fishing fleets with unprecedented resolution. By providing the public, governments, researchers, and management bodies with a near-real-time dataset of global fisheries, Global Fishing Watch is facilitating a revolution in fisheries management towards transparency, sustainability, and effective marine conservation.

GFW tracks

Global Fishing Watch’s dynamic database represents the largest influx of new data into the fields of fisheries science and marine conservation. It is expanding the possibilities and the kind of research and management questions we can answer. Some of these questions we are working on are:

  • How does the global network of trans-boundary fisheries look like?
  • Who fishes the high seas, where, and how profitable is it? What is the role of government subsidies to enable high seas fisheries?
  • How well do we know where global catch is coming from?
  • What can we learn from the behavior of fishing fleets about the status of the underlying fish stocks?
  • How do fishing fleets respond to the creation of protected areas?
  • What are the costs of creating large marine reserves in the high seas?

Publications

. Wealthy countries dominate industrial fishing. In Science Advances, 2018.

PDF Project Press release

. Rapid and lasting gains from solving illegal fishing. In Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2018.

PDF Code Project

. Tracking the Global Footprint of Fisheries. In Science, 2018.

PDF Code Dataset Project Press release