Tech solutions to tackle overfishing, abuse at sea
Fishing boats used high-tech systems to find vast schools of fish for decades, depleting stocks of some species and leading to the complete collapse of others. Now more than a dozen apps, devices and monitoring systems aimed at tracking unscrupulous vessels and the seafood they catch are being rolled out - hightech solutions some say could also help prevent labor abuse at sea.
Illegal fishing, which includes catching undersized fish, exceeding quotas and casting nets in protected areas, leads to an estimated $23 billion in annual losses, according to the United Nations. Meanwhile, overfishing close to shore has pushed boats farther out, where there are few laws and even less enforcement to protect workers from abuse. Slavery has been documented in the fishing sectors of more than 50 countries, according to US State Department reports.
Earlier this year, US Secretary of State John Kerry said using technology at sea could eventually mean “there is not one square mile of ocean where we cannot prosecute and hold people accountable...”
However, Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, cautions that catching human traffickers goes beyond finding boats. “Technology is all about knowing where the fishing boats are on the ocean, but that does precious little for crews being physically abused and worked to the bone on those vessels,” he said.
Here are some emerging tech solutions:
APP FOR WORKERS
Nonprofit anti-trafficking organization Project Issara is tapping into near-ubiquitous smartphones with an app that allows Burmese and Cambodian migrant workers around the world to share information about their working conditions. Their reviews reach nonprofits, governments and businesses which can monitor and learn from the feedback. Combined with a new multilingual hotline, victims of labor abuses have a safer, discreet way of seeking help.
BAR CODES
A worker runs a gadget over a fish just after it’s pulled from the boat, giving it a bar code that creates a permanent record of where it was caught. It’s a simple swipe with profound potential. Thomas Kraft at Norpac Fisheries Export established one of the industry’s first bar-code systems that give each fish a tag that can provide details about location, boat, species, and weight. He’s been using the technology in locations worldwide and says it could easily be expanded to include crews on individual boats to help fight against labor abuse. —AP