Catching industrial fishing incursions into inshore waters of Africa from space

Abstract

Small‐scale fisheries contribute substantially to the sustainability of coastal communities by providing livelihood and economic opportunities and ensuring food security. However, their geographic range of operation overlaps with that of industrial fisheries, increasing the resource competition, risk of vessel collision and inter‐sector conflicts, while jeopardizing the sustainability of fish stocks. When industrial vessels venture into waters that are reserved to artisanal fisheries, their operations become illegal. In Africa, the extent of such operations, beyond their legal implications, has resulted in severe economic, food security and maritime safety issues. In this paper, we use automatic identification system data derived from satellite technology to predict fishing operations and find that industrial fleets spend 3%–6% of their time fishing within inshore areas reserved for small‐scale fisheries between 2012 and 2016, of the total 4.2 million industrial fishing hours within the Exclusive Economic Zones of African countries. We assessed the total fishing effort by this form of illegal fishing operations at 166 million kWhours at least out of 4.9 billion kWhours in total. We discuss this dangerous form of illegal fishing, which often results in deadly collisions with small‐scale sector operators, increases competition and conflicts over fisheries access, threatens the sustainability of fish stocks, and calls for better governance, and protection.

Remote sensing of fish-processing in the Sundarbans Reserve Forest, Bangladesh: an insight into the modern slavery-environment nexus in the coastal fringe

“…The presence of processing activities in these localities can lead to erosion and reduced sedimentation, deforestation, prohibited coastal development, and run-off affecting the delta, mangrove forest, and ocean. By using satellite remote sensing data, the evolution of land-based fishing activities in the SRF can reveal how fish-processing camps contribute to coastal damage, as has been evidenced in the marine environment (see Belhabib et al 2019). This aligns with calls for increased use of remote sensing to assess the environmental impacts of modern slavery-supported activities (Jackson et al 2018;Jackson 2019).…”

Stable Seas: Gulf of Guinea

“…326 This impacts the livelihoods of millions of vulnerable people in the region, especially women, who depend on the fisheries sector through marketing/distribution and processing activities. 327,328 IUU fishing also presents a major obstacle for countries in the region to meeting SDG4-to improve economic growthand simultaneously widens the gender inequality gap, threatening attainment of SDG5-achieving gender equality and empowering all women. 329 Faced with reduced catch, fisherfolks have sought to engage in IUU fishing themselves, either by fishing in restricted areas or fishing across borders.…”

Using Satellite Imagery to Understand and Promote Sustainable Development

“…Recent work shows how multiple satellite sensors and deep learning can shed light on overall patterns of global fishing activity 37 as well as on specific activities like illegal fishing. 38,85 Researchers in economics also increasingly utilize satellite imagery -and particularly night-time lights imagery -for a variety of applications (see ref 6 for a review). Nightlights have been used to assess the validity of official government statistics, 17,86 to understand the growth and activity of urban versus rural areas, 87,88 and to assess the role of local and federal institutions, transport costs, and other factors on economic development.…”