Indonesia Turns to Google in War on Illegal Fishing – gCaptain
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But it’s not game over for the minister: she says local boats are still working with “global pirates” who catch fish just outside the permitted zone, which are then shipped to foreign destinations. And that’s where Google comes in.
“They still steal from us. We see it on Google fishing watch,” [Indonesia’s Fisheries Minister Susi] Pudjiastuti said, referring to Global Fishing Watch, an online mapping platform co-founded by Google. “They use Indonesian-affiliated companies and businesses and basically take their catch a few miles beyond the exclusive economic zone, where a refrigerated mothership is waiting.”
Indonesia last year became the first nation to share its Vessel Monitoring System information — government-owned data used to monitor maritime traffic — with the global monitoring platform, founded by Google, Oceana and SkyTruth, and funded by partners including the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Pudjiastuti’s initiative instantly made nearly 5,000 previously invisible boats viewable. She has called for other nations to follow her lead, with Peru last year committing to making its fishing data available.
Brian Sullivan, the manager of Google Ocean and Earth Outreach, said information from Indonesia’s VMS was fed through the same algorithm used by Global Fishing Watch to produce a new set of analytics. That was then added to raw satellite imagery to produce an even more detailed footprint of fishing activities in near-real time.
“Susi reached out to us and said ’I like what you’re working on, we’d like to see how we could use that information in Indonesia,” California-based Sullivan said in a telephone interview. “She has been probably one of the most progressive ministers within fisheries for taking something that historically all governments had kept extremely close.”
By using machine learning and watching how a vessel moves, Google’s technology is able to establish patterns, and determine whether a vessel is in transit or fishing.
A study published last month found that foreign fishing in Indonesia dropped by more than 90 percent and total fishing by 25 percent following the tough policies introduced by Pudjiastuti, which also included a ban on all foreign-owned and -made boats from fishing in Indonesia and the restriction of transfers of fish at sea.
“We know what it looks like when a vessel is broadcasting because we see that vessel’s position,” said Sullivan. “And if it then goes quiet for a while and then reappears on the other side of a marine-protected area that would be considered suspicious activity.”