The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is calling on commercial fisheries worldwide to adopt new satellite tracking technology to ensure transparency of fishing operations.
The WWF offered up a pilot project it has been working on with Sea Quest, a fishing company based in Fiji, as a model that the WWF said is working.
" Our cooperation shows that this MSC-certified tuna fishery is willing to make their fishing operations fully transparent." said Alfred Schumm, WWF's Smart Fishing Initiative Leader. "I hope that the Sea Quest project will become a global example of how to make fishing transparent, and that it will trigger other companies to join us aboard."
For the project, six transmitters have been active continuously on Sea Quest longline albacore tuna fishing vessels, feeding data on the vessels' activity to a database for evaluation.
"With the AIS installation, safety and transparency of compliance with fishing areas are being addressed," said Brett Haywood, owner of Sea Quest. "Other issues like illegal fishing, barcoding of fish, electronic monitoring of fisheries as well as satellite monitoring need to be part of a larger framework to be addressed through regulatory measures."
