How Mobile Technology Could Help Stop Illegal Fishing
Smartphones won't reverse the problem of overfishing, but new crowdsourced policing apps get us a tiny bit closer.
By Ben Schiller
Something like three-quarters of the world's fishing grounds are being overfished--that is, fish are being taken out faster than they can be replenished by reproduction. And part of the problem is illegal fishing. It's not so much that laws don't exist to stop over-exploitation. It's that countries don't have the means to enforce the rules.
The West African nation of Ghana, for example, bans certain types of fishing in its waters. But it lacks the resources to police its coastline. So-called "pirate ships" and foreign trawlers have decimated its stocks. Across the region, an estimated a third of all fishing is carried out illegally.
Could mobile technology help fill the enforcement gap?
Perhaps says Matt Merrifield, a senior technologist at the Nature Conservancy, a conservation non-profit. He recently worked on a reporting app called ShipWatch as part of a "Fishackathon" organized by the U.S. State Department. And he was encouraged by the other ideas developed during the 36-hour weekend....
The Fishackathon took place in five U.S. cities, with the first held in Monterey, California. The winner of that hack was a team from UC Berkeley's Information School, which developed an app called Fish DB. It, too, lets fishers report illegal activity, as well to register their boats and get fishing licenses....
More information:
Berkeley I School Team Triumphs in Hackathon for Sustainable Fishing