Prevent Overfishing: How Transparency Can Save the Ocean

1:00:00 One of the biggest things that I feel like gets overlooked a lot is overfishing. The health of our ocean, you alluded to it when you're talking about overfishing, it's really under pressure and it's under pressure from intensive human activity. But despite all of that activity that's going on, the ocean's the least observed part of our planet. We really don't have a good clue or a good sense of what's happening. And that means that decision makers, they're not getting access to the timely information that they need to manage and protect the ocean. How do we combat overfishing on a global scale? This has been a question that's been on the books for a long time. And the big thing is transparency, knowing where fishing vessels go, where they're at and how is track throughout the supply chain.

1:00:44 You know, that's a big, big problem. But just tracking fishing vessels is one of the biggest problems and challenges around it. 24 study led by Global Fishing Watch, who we're going to be interviewing today, showed that 75 percent of industrial fishing fleets are not tracked. That is a dangerous number. So I have Courtney Farthing, who is the director of international policy at the Global Fishing Watch, who is here to talk about how we've tracked fisheries and how we track fishing vessels and how important transparency is to the Global Fishing Watch. And we're going to be talking about that on this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Let's start the show.

1:01:28 Hey, everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. And this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. Now, in today's episode, we're going to be talking to Courtney Farthing from the Global Fishing Watch. She is the international policy director based in London, but Global Fishing Watch have their employees or staff all over the world. This is what makes them such an effective organization. They've only been around for about 10 years and they have become a major player in helping countries deal with transparency, looking at data operations and how interoperable they are and making sure everybody's on the same standard as well as tracking where the money goes.

1:02:15 Who profits from ocean fishing? Like, that's really what it comes down to. Now, that is more of a challenging thing that we talked about later on. But looking at, you know, tracking transparency and fishing vessels is a huge, huge important part of the Global Fishing Watch's mission. And they are working with countries to help that, especially using technology. Courtney talks about the 2025 our oceans conference that happened in South Korea recently and talks about what Global Fishing Watch wanted to accomplish, talking about digital oceans, talking about technology and transparency. And then how that international conference leads into the UN Ocean Decade Conference that happens in June this 2025. So we're going to talk a lot of things. We're going to go fishing vessel tracking transparency.

1:02:58 We're going to be talking about who profits. We're going to be talking about some of the challenges that are faced and some of the successes that we've had, as well as international conferences and how important they are all on today's episode. So here is Courtney Farthing talking about transparency in fishing. Enjoy the interview and we'll talk to you after. Hey, Courtney, welcome to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk about global fishing? Hi, Andrew. Yes, definitely. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. I am very excited because look, we know Oceans Day is coming up. Ocean's week is coming up. There's a lot to talk about when we talk when we talk about oceans. But one of the biggest things that I feel like gets overlooked a lot, even though it's on the back of people's minds in the public, in the general public, is overfishing and overfishing.

1:03:47 What are the causes? We've seen documentaries on there before that haven't been too great. And there's a lot of data out there to show what's happening. But in the general public, we just we blame fishermen in the fishing community overall. And there's obviously separation. There's a lot of nuances in that. But when it really comes to global fishing and looking at the problems over fishing and addressing it, we really want to look at transparency. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. So I'm super, super excited. Before we get into all that, though, Courtney, why don't you just let us know who you are and what you do. Yeah, thanks so much, Andrew. Yeah, and thanks again for having me. My name is Courtney Farthing. I'm the International Policy Director at Global Fishing Watch.

1:04:32 I've been with the organization just over five years and working in this space for a little over a decade, always on international and regional fisheries policies, negotiations. I studied this at university and really have been interested in it since I was a young child. So yeah, really happy to be here talking about it today. That's awesome. What made like since a young child, like for fishing, like what made you interested? Did you grow up in a fishing community or like what made you interested in fishing in general? Yeah, it's a really good question. I think that probably a lot of people, my generation that are British would have the same answer. There was this TV series led by David Attenborough, a TV presenter here in the UK called Blue Planet.

1:05:15 Yes. Probably I was five or six and it just, you know, shook my little five or six year old world. I got the coffee table book for the images. I was obsessed and that obsession never really went away. I mean, David Attenborough has that that effect on people too, right? And I think he still has that effect even though he's what and is well into his nineties. I think he's ninety nine. I think I saw. Yeah, I'm not sure late nineties for sure. Yeah, late nineties for sure. Unreal. But he's been definitely a pioneer in getting people interested in oceans and in fishing. And Blue Planet is such a great, great experience. Blue Planet two was even better. It just gets better and better. Yeah, for sure. Now you work for a global fishing watch and some of our members know, like some of our audience knows who global fishing watches. Some of them don't. Can you just kind of let us know, you know, what global fishing does and why?

1:06:06 Yeah. Yeah. And I thank you so much for the opportunity to introduce the organization. So I guess the context really, I'll start by saying that, you know, the health of our ocean, you alluded to it when you're talking about overfishing. It's really under pressure and it's under pressure from intense. So if human activity, but despite all of that activity that's going on, the oceans, the least observed part of our planet, we really don't have a good clue or a good sense of what's happening. And that means that decision makers, they're not getting access to the timely information that they need to manage and protect the ocean. So global fishing watches, an international nonprofit that was born out of, I guess, frustration at trying to address those challenges.

1:06:48 Our purpose is to transform the way that the ocean is managed. We want to kind of take the business as usual closed patchwork governance system and flip it on its head to deliver an open, transparent global system. And, you know, we're dedicated to doing that by increasing the level of transparency of human activity at sea. What that means in reality is that we create data and tools that we share publicly to support anybody in the decision making process, know more about, you know, what's going on and have as much publicly available information as possible at their fingertips for free.

1:07:28 That's awesome. I mean, transparency is such an important term, right? It's it's it's something that we need to see more of it. We talk a lot about transparency. We talk a lot about what that actually means, where it actually gets implemented and how it gets implemented. Governments talk about transparency a lot. But if you think about it, a lot of times governments aren't transparent with a lot of things. And so what is transparency mean in specifically for global fishing watch? So we believe essentially that all of the activity that goes on on the high seas, that's those areas outside of a country's national waters. That's a common resource. And so therefore activity, those activities should be common knowledge because of this common resource.

1:08:15 So Global Fishing Watch defines transparency as making information available and accessible to everyone that it affects. And that definition is pretty broad. It's based on one from the United Nations. And we really focus on ocean and vessel data transparency. As you say, there's a whole range of interpretations that it can be used for. But we're looking at ocean and vessel data, the policies and the decision making processes that govern those data. And we believe that all of this information should be available and accessible to everyone with a stake in what happens to that resource. That could be the fishing community, the local community experiencing secondhand impacts from high seas fishing, the researchers investigating trends or the general public who just want to see a sustainable future for future generations.

1:09:04 That's amazing. It's so, like I said, it's so important to have transparency, but not everybody uses transparency. Like that's not a common thing in in fishing. There are some there are some tools that we can use, but it's not a common thing. We'll discuss, you know, how we figured that out in the future in in in in this interview. But what what steps do you think people can take or that that just ocean governance in general can take so that we can get more towards, you know, putting in putting transparency to becoming more of the standard rather than the exception when you talk about ocean governance in general. Yeah, I think there are two main things.

1:09:45 Firstly, we need to increase the amount of transparent data. People need to be publishing things like their vessel tracking information, the identity of the vessels, where they're authorized to operate, who the owners are. And this is becoming increasingly available. But the second thing that we need is policies to regulate that and to require that. And that really needs to be strengthened. We're seeing a pretty massive impact on the data. And we're seeing a pretty massive shift, I would say, in attitudes towards transparency of ocean and fisheries data. From our perspective at Global Fishing Watch, we're seeing our countries coming to us and asking how they can share more information as they start to see and experience the benefits that that public information brings them.

1:10:28 And in a really kind of pivotal moment for ocean transparency at the end of last year, United Nations adopted through consensus. So everybody agreed, which is pretty unusual and assembly resolution that features text specifically on transparency and fisheries, recognizes the role that transparency has to play in sustainable fishing practices, and it urges countries and international bodies to consider ways that they can better integrate transparent practices. So it's really brilliant progress, but we've still got quite a way to go. And so we really need to see fishing nations publishing their vessel registries. That's who they allow to fish, including the details on who's actually benefiting from those fishing operations, not just who's working on the vessels, but who's profiting from the operations, the ultimate beneficial owner.

1:11:45 And that gives everyone information on what the vessels allowed to do, where and who's benefiting. So we're seeing a shift in attitudes and more and more vessels publish their tracking data. And if we have these policies in place, those changes can withstand changes in government, changes in personnel, the rules already written and countries can also improve them over time and over time. When we're talking about what we're talking about, the information is low level. So we're talking about ie, the cost of writing textbooks,oof, Isa at the diver, three or etc.isons. Maybe not what you're discussing now. So they look at policy lifefacking, if you're going to recover, partnered with a company you own a business with coupon secrets program is only getting real, appleamb to other nonprofit organizations or non-governmental organizations, just more within that country, it's within there.

1:12:41 Yeah. And then there's probably other countries who aren't tracking a lot of their phishing, just in general, they may not have the technology, they may not have the ability, or it's just not in their practices or in their traditional practices, right? So there's a lot of different, I mean, there's so many countries you're probably dealing with. It's probably a lot of different cultures, different people, different countries around the world who are just like, we just never thought of that. How important is this for Global Fishing Watch to be able to work with countries like that to say, "Hey, look, this is what we've seen around the world that's been working. Are you interested too, especially countries coming to you saying, I mean, it must feel good that countries are coming to you and being like, "Hey, how do we implement this?"

1:13:23 But how do you work with those countries when they come to you? I assume you don't go to them, they come to you, and then you work with them. Is that how it works? Yeah, I guess it's a little bit of both. Global Fishing Watch, through all of our research and the great innovation teams work that we have, we were able to identify perhaps where the challenges are, where there is a lot of tracking information already and therefore where there maybe isn't. And we might make approaches to those countries and find out, are there challenges that are preventing them from using these systems? Is it a cost issue? Is it a resource issue? And similarly, we get approached by countries for specific issues and we might help them with that specific issue and then broaden our program of work together to look at the bigger picture over time.

1:14:10 But yeah, there is these different systems in place in terms of vessel tracking and the more traditional one is closed. There is an open one that has historically been used for safety at sea that's becoming increasingly common to use as part of a tool of options for fisheries management. And we're really seeing people embrace that more than ever. Amazing. Now, the Our Oceans Conference, the 2025 Oceans Conference, just finished up earlier this month. And it was in Busan, I think I'm pronouncing that properly, South Korea. Good. Now, one of the themes of the conference was digital oceans. Now, this seems to play right into what we're talking about here in terms of transparency, in terms of making it available to people technology plays a huge role in that in terms of tracking vessels and making it public databases and so forth.

1:15:01 And we're in a bit of a revolution in terms like a digital revolution where we're starting to see more of that available. But there's still that open question of, you know, the role of technology that has been delivering to deliver more sustainable and transparent ocean governance. So how do you see technology fitting in and delivering good ocean governance, especially when it's referring to transparency? Yeah, I mean, lots of people obviously think technology is going to solve all problems everywhere. And that's certainly not Global Fishing Watch's position. Technology is crucial, essentially, for helping people to be more effective. It's not something that's going to solve the issues on its own.

1:15:41 It's always about giving more information, better information, more succinct information to people. So, for example, you might have a foreign vessel request entry into a port. So, say, Canadian vessels are in Canada requesting entry into UK waters as I'm here in London. Right. And the UK authorities might want more information about what that vessel has been doing. They have two options, really. They can ask the vessel operator and take their word. If they're not sure of some information missing, they can contact the Canadian authorities and ask them to fact check, basically.

1:16:21 And traditionally, you know, you might have a notebook that has a list of people handwritten with a phone number of fax information, email address. Yeah. And that pretty quickly becomes outdated and unhelpful. People change jobs and, you know, is that a three or an eight? I don't know. And technology helps you to fix that problem. There is this really potentially transformative tool called the Global Record, which is a UN initiative. It's an international transparent database of vessel records. And that would provide a single source of information with all of that in it. And if countries keep that information up to date, then your notebooks, obviously, and who you need to contact is very clear.

1:17:07 Yeah. Another example. It makes it faster for people to connect because you can just almost automate that process to like, if I don't know who this Canadian vessel is, I don't have as much information. An email could trigger to be sent right to the authorities in Canada to be like, oh, so Coast Guard is like, yes, no, we know this vessel and this is here's the information. Boom, updated. It works seamlessly, right? Exactly. And there's like less opportunity for misinterpretation because you're coming at it from the same underlying data. So in that way, technology is really helpful. Another example that springs to mind is a vessel might show, you know, your Canadian vessel, it would be unusual, but your Canadian vessel might tell me in the UK that they're authorized to fish for the tuna in the Pacific Ocean.

1:17:51 Right. But I have access to transparent tracking information. And so I can see actually, OK, this vessel was recently fishing in the Indian Ocean. So I authorized to the Indian Ocean or is there an issue here? And technology allows you to very rapidly pull together all of the different sources related to that specific vessel and cross check as well as highlighting who the owner of the vessel is. So you have the transparency of the data, the technology, pulling together all these different sources and allowing you as the user to choose where to dig deeper. Good governance can only be delivered by the authorities, as we said, it's the people. Right. It's the people having access to that information and saying, ah, OK, this owner is problematic.

1:18:35 We've had an issue with this owner before. Yes, we need to investigate further or this vessel. It actually is authorized to operate in the Indian Ocean. It's just that this database hasn't been updated yet, but these other four have and therefore don't need to do anything else. It's just it's not realistic that these deep dives will be made out on every single fisheries decision. Countries just don't have the resources that transparency and technology, they allow people to be more effective in choosing where those resources get allocated. One and also like the speed at which decisions can be made to obviously having multiple databases from each country and not integrating them as it's a problem which can be changed.

1:19:16 We know that now, but also the speed at which, like, you know, we're talking, you know, our example before was, you know, a legal example where it's like just, you know, people coming into a different port but may not have the information that happens all the time. And so it automatically gets updated. Boom, no problem. But when you have a legal fishing happen and then you have somebody go in like a ship that comes in through to a port, empties out and leaves probably within a couple of hours. It's very difficult for the authorities to even be dispatched or even to recognize that that is not a fishing vessel that is in good standing or has had problems like you said before, but they can't act on it until they get there. Now, I have heard of cases where AIs is being used or being explored in being able to quicken that process. And I'm sure like, you know, data was a data mining and so forth, like these types of technologies can help.

1:20:06 Is Global Fishing Watch involved in any of that type of work where we're looking at upgrading that technology to speed up the process where, you know, authorities at the port can be dispatched in time. So these vessels are caught before they come into port. Yeah, absolutely. That's a really cool program of work for us. We, you know, these systems that you're talking about, they've been in place in many developed nations for a long time. And so what Global Fishing Watch is really trying to do is bring together those elements and give them to developing nations for free so that the developing nations have access to the same like cutting edge innovative tools that will save them resources in the long run. We have two programs of work that are directly related to what you're talking about. One is for port inspections and we have a tool. You can find it on our website. It's called Vessel Viewer.

1:20:55 It really collates all of that information in an easy to understand way. You can type in a vessel name, a vessel identifier, a fleet, a flag, whatever you like. And it will give you very, very quickly, very rapidly, much quicker than my Google searching. You know, five, 10, 15 different data sources of information for that for that vessel. And you can quickly scan and see, okay, these don't match. Therefore, I want to take action. And then the second program of work is similar, but it's really focused on supporting boardings and inspections. So Coast Guards and using the same data sources by presenting it in a way that helps patrol planning. And yeah, we've been doing that for a long time and had some great successes.

1:21:38 That's amazing. That's amazing. Now talking about technology and vessel tracking, you know, in Busan, Global Fishing Watch spoke quite prominently about the great need for binding vessel agreement, tracking agreements. What is vessel tracking and like why should it matter for those concerned about effective global ocean governance? Yeah, so vessel tracking is the ability to detect, identify and monitor a ship's location and map the full details of the ship's journey. So from the port that they leave from through to their final destination. And we can track our cars like this, our aeroplanes, even our merchant vessels in the same ocean. But really surprisingly, there's no global requirement for all fishing vessels that leave their own national waters to be tracked.

1:22:26 And we just we can't fix what we can't see. So without a full data informed picture, the true scale of the human activity at sea and all of the impacts that add up, you know, we can't manage them effectively. And we can't take informed or preemptive actions to address their issues. So, you know, if you're concerned about the sustainability of your HADUC here in the UK or human rights conditions of the supply chain where your pet food comes from or degradation of the Great Barrier Reef, you should care really that there's no global binding tracking requirement because these things all add up and they all equal increasing pressure on our ocean.

1:23:07 So knowing what fishing vessels are doing and where allows us to understand the pressures, how they accumulate and how we can manage them before they do irreparable damage to our our ocean's health. Yeah, it's really interesting too, because I think, you know, when you talk about vessel tracking for for fishing, you would think that all fishers don't want people to know where they go, you know, they have their own special spot. And how they increase their no take areas, or they're no like nobody goes in those areas from 3% to 33%. I think, at the time, they increased it by 30%. But they did it using vessel tracking. So when they put time to work with them, you know, you the heading of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park at the time in early 2000. He came over, he was a good friend of my supervisor, John Roff, and he came over and he did a presentation on how they increased their no take areas or nobody goes in those areas from 3% to 33%, I think at the time. So they increased it by 30%, but they did it using vessel tracking.

1:24:00 So when they put in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, they actually put trackers on fishing vessels. And so when they looked at where they were, and they looked at what areas like the reserves or the no take, no research, no nothing, reserves went in and they wanted to increase it, they actually noticed that the fishers weren't even going in and they weren't even going into that area because they had that tracking vessel. So when they presented to the fishing community, they're like at first, before they laid the track down, I remember him telling the story, they're like, "Oh yeah, this is where we want to increase." They're like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, why are we increasing there?" And they're like, "Oh yeah, by the way, here's the layer of where you guys have been. You're not even in that area." And they're all just like, "Oh, well, okay, no problem." It's perfect. So people, there are times and situations where it actually helps conservation.

1:24:46 Now that's not always going to be the time. There's conflict management. That's why you bring in that fishing community early on in the process, but there are times when it can be really helpful. Now we're looking at technology and I know AIS is a very big part of vessel tracking. So it's a GPS system, a very simple system that tracks and I've worked on that data before when I worked as a consultant for the government. And it's a very important thing in looking at shipping lanes and where people are going. Are they a Biden by it? So forth. And then of course, are they in marine protected areas here in Canada when I worked on it? But there's also a difference. I think you can turn it on and off whenever you want to do, or there's ways to get around it. And this kind of goes into my next question because in a 2024 study that published in Nature, which was led by and led by Global Fishing Watch researchers, and I've always wanted to ask this question from you guys. About 75% of the industrial fishing fleet does not appear in public monitoring systems, which is insane to think about. You think you have this technology, not always AIS, but you have all this technology that you can put on, but then you find out that three quarters of the industrial fishing fleet does not actually use it. So how can, like you mentioned before, how can you track what you don't know?

1:26:01 Like how can you monitor what you don't know? So I guess like my question is like, how can transpandemic technology shine a light on the sort of the hidden happenings around the ocean? Like how do we increase that to 75% or even more being tracked instead of the opposite? Yeah, flipping it. I guess, yeah, it comes back to that point that we were talking about at the start about, Global Fishing Watch's purpose being to flip from a closed system to an open one. And much of that activity to be clear, we're not saying it's not tracked at all, it's just not publicly tracked. So much of that activity is probably being tracked by closed monitoring systems. Typically that's vessel monitoring systems or VMFs.

1:26:44 And that data is shared between the vessel itself and the flag state. That's the country that has allowed the vessel to go out and leave and go into national waters. And this is how traditional kind of more old school vessel tracking monitoring control and surveillance works. The tracking information is confidential. It's only shared between the vessel and the flag state. And the theory is exactly as you said, Andrew, it protects these kind of commercial sensitivities, such as good fishing spots, whilst allowing the authorities who are the ones ultimately responsible to see what the vessel is doing. But this means if somebody else like me as the UK port state, or you as the coastal state giving a license for the vessel to fish in a different spot, they don't know what's happening.

1:27:28 They don't, they can't see it. So they can take the vessel's word for it, or they can contact the flag with all those challenges that we spoke about before. And we have seen decades of industrial fishing now and decades of this happening on the high seas. And in reality, what we are seeing is that flag states are not able to consistently meet the demand of these inquiries that are coming. And we at Global Fishing Watch have worked with countries where we've seen these requests go unanswered completely, go unanswered for weeks, or people not being able to get in touch with the right contacts. And we've also heard from flag states that have said to us, it's so much better when everything's public, because then we're only contacted if there's a real issue and then we can dedicate our resources to figuring that out with whoever's contacted us.

1:28:17 And we've also seen these kind of unscrupulous operators looking to take advantage of those issues and looking to benefit themselves by exactly as you say falsifying the information they provide, pretending they're over here when really they're only here. And having multiple data sources, having the VMS and the AIS allows you to cross check and to compare and to understand whether it issues. And yeah, that's so important because we know like the honor system doesn't work anymore. We've seen that happen over and over and over again. And it would have been nice if it did work and then we could just trust everybody. And then maybe there'd be only a small percentage of players, but 75% seems a little sketchy. Like, why wouldn't you want to know where you've been? Like, if you're doing everything right, why wouldn't you want to know?

1:29:03 And that's, I think that was what was scariest to me. It was like 75% of that's a lot. That's huge. And was it surprising to the organization? Like, to you, like just being like, holy cow, like I would expect it under 50%, but 75, like the majority, like by a lot. I mean, you don't even get that many people. I'm about, you know, I, we had a federal election here recently and I don't think we had 75% people come up to vote. So imagine 75% of the people like not even tracking their vessels. Yeah, it was surprising. And I think it really just reiterated the scale of the issue and the seriousness with which Global Fishing Watch needs to treat this issue. And we use that in our interventions at the UN, we use that in our bilateral discussions that we have with countries to really show like, you might not think this is a huge problem, but globally, this really is a huge problem. And that argument continues to surface, we need to protect our special fishing spot that maybe like your grandfather found or whatever that might be. But in reality, that is quite outdated now.

1:30:04 Other technologies, not just tracking technologies, yeah, have changed so much, right? You can find huge scores of fish more quickly than you've ever been able to before. And so many locations are broadcast, as you say, via AIS for safety reasons, this concept of the secret fishing spot or the perfect fishing spot that others don't know about. You know, of course, there are exceptions, but generally, it's not really a reality anymore. Plus, you know, our Global Fishing Watch, as I said, from the outset, you know, if activities occurring, you know, in a common area on a common resource, we think it should be common knowledge. Yeah, and it's also it's like, it's with especially within, I mean, there's there's also the difference between like within the exclusive economic zones and outside, I mean, especially within the exclusive economic zone, it's a natural resource for that country, the citizens of that country should have access.

1:30:52 And then people and organizations such as Global Fishing Watch and yourself can come out and say, Hey, look, we specialize in this, right? We look at this, we'll take this data and we'll do analysis on this, we'll see where people go and we'll give you the information, probably as a benefit to those countries to have the specialists. I mean, Global Fishing Watch is literally global, you guys are all around the world, you know, and spaced all around the world. So you understand sort of the different contexts and nuances of each country and where you live and the regions in which where you live. So you have that specialist group to be able to take that data that's available publicly, provide that analysis to the country and just be like, Hey, look, you know, we want to help you.

1:31:34 And I guess at least to my next question is like, how is Global Fishing Watch, you know, working with other countries and governments to mainstream vessel tracking? I know we talked a little bit about how you work with countries before, but yes, to mainstream vessel tracking, it's got to be a bit of a challenge because like I said before, there are some countries who may not even have it available or may not. And some just may not make it public, which might be a little easier. So how do you get through that into mainstream that vessel tracking? Yeah, you're right. We work with a number of countries and the most important thing really is country context. We're, you know, an international team, a global team of experts on vessel tracking, but we're not a global team of experts on vessel tracking in Senegal or in the UK or Canada or in Ghana or in the Marshall Islands.

1:32:24 That country context is really important. So everything has got to be a partnership with the governments that we're working with. We really need to understand why their system was developed the way it was, if it's meeting their needs, what their challenges are. And we do that through a combination of learning from the government, working with them, really digging deep into understanding how they work with partners on the ground, with other nonprofits, with researchers, with local universities and with people that we hire into Global Fishing Watch. And we hire into Global Fishing Watch to work on projects that perhaps have worked in that country for a number of years. And a really significant portion of the work that we do as an organization with countries is specifically focused on vessel tracking.

1:33:06 So we help countries to review their policies around vessel tracking. Does your legislation meet the needs that you have? Do your regulations have the requirements that you need? Are they out of date? Could they be updated? Is there a week or a week wording which bad actors could take advantage of? And we go to the country and we spend time there and we go through normally a week long process to co-develop a program of work that really looks at all the different challenges and makes recommendations on how public vessel tracking could help them. But you've got to meet them where they are, right? You can't be going and making recommendations for like a platinum system when the fundamentals aren't in place. So that does vary country to country.

1:33:51 And one thing that we have really learned throughout our kind of last number of years working with countries on this is that AIS, that automatic identification system technology, is really valued by a lot of countries for its cost effectiveness. So vessel monitoring systems, VMS, pretty expensive and lots of countries, they have it and they don't pay for it. So therefore it's not getting used or they don't have it at all. Whereas AIS, much more reasonably priced, much more affordable, whilst it may not be perfect, meeting a country where they are, they have nothing, this is something and we start with them there. And then kind of taking that one step further, we often support them to engage in regional and international discussions on vessel tracking that perhaps they might not have been paying attention to or been able to be engaged with before.

1:34:44 And that's a lot of kind of learning from others, sharing experiences, discussing challenges and requesting help from the international community where they think they could benefit. And so far, this has been pretty successful. Yeah, absolutely. And I love that to see more countries being interested in and I do get the fact that there are some countries who just need to just a little help to get up above and let's just start with tracking in general, get the basic information, which is location. You know, there's an as it as it's somebody who's involved in GIS loves maps and visual learner as many of us are to be able to see those stories develop and to be able to see where people are going and and to find out when people are going at certain times and so forth and to be like, look, this is a big fishing spot, but it's around this area.

1:35:30 Why is it around this area? And you can really collate a lot of science around that and a lot of research around that. So I do love that. I love that. Now, obviously, vessel tracking is is one part. It's a big significant part, especially with that 2024 study that was led by Google Watch looking at that. But there's also other things that have come up in the past where especially when we're looking at illegal fishing and you mentioned it earlier is tracking who benefits from the profits of selling this fish, these fish, whether they're legally caught or illegally caught like just a registry of owners of not only vessels, but like the owners of the of who's getting the final profit of it all because there are there have been stories have come out that we've covered on this podcast where we're looking at illegal fishing.

1:36:16 There was one vessel in particular who who went through like decades long reputation of going into ports under different flags and then being going in when they finally caught it, they caught the vessel. They couldn't track who was to like who owned it and it was over a lot. It got into a lot of not only politics, but there was like organized crime involved and things like that. And it's it's it gets very complex. So tracking the vessel is one thing. It's obviously a very important thing physically. It's like the basic thing that we need. But then when we track who profits off of this, how is that how is that research or that program going as is global fishing watch involved in that as well? And how is that where are we at with that type of of tracking?

1:37:04 Yeah, global fishing, which is definitely involved in that. I'd say those are our kind of two. Those are two of our three big policy areas that we focus on internationally. And that is because they're just big international gaps on these topics. And so we're talking about the one that we look at is the interoperability of data and the standards of data, much more technical, but those are our three big areas. And ownership is probably the furthest behind needs the most amount of attention and leadership. And so we're seeing lots of people embrace tracking transparency and data quality measures. We're not really seeing, you know, country after country coming forward and publishing their ownership data.

1:37:48 And in some cases, we're seeing, you know, restrictions of that data and tightening of data privacy rules to cover commercially sensitive information that the country considers commercially sensitive. And it is a real challenge because as you mentioned, you know, there's so many loopholes that you're smart unscrupulous operators can use to their advantage. They can change the name, they can change the flag, they can call in one port and then another and you know, leave and what happens. Nobody knows who they are. And then finally, you say you get to who's been doing the bad behavior. You wish you a huge fine. It goes through your courts loads of work on your behalf. And all you have is the operator who of course can't pay that fine. You know, manning a fishing vessel that's not, you don't get the fine. You don't get the satisfaction or the sanction.

1:38:35 And, you know, the owner's not deterred. They just do it again with a different vessel. So we really do need transparency of beneficial ownership information. There is a route for it with the United Nations. As I mentioned before, this global record has a space in this app. It's essentially an app to upload all of this information. But we just need leadership from countries to navigate the data privacy rules interpret how that can be shared and commit to sharing that information. And I'm sure that's that's not an easy thing. You know, we know the process, but just the fact of just displaying, you know, information like financial information from private companies is is a problem within itself.

1:39:16 Maybe from publicly traded companies, you can you can start to install those types of measures and policies, but from a private company who they don't really want you to see their books all the time for a number of different reasons. You know, it could be it could be very challenging. So hopefully we can get further and further on that. And obviously, we're we're at the beginning stages. But I love the fact that, you know, the vessel tracking is getting up. Countries are interested. Same with data interoperability, like trying to be able to make sure we have the same standards and we're all comparing at the same rate. I think it's great because, you know, it's one ocean. So we should be talking about one one type of fisheries. Now, I know the the ocean conference just the ocean conference just wrapped up in Busan, South Korea. And, you know, we're now looking forward to we're just about to go into the UN Ocean Conference, the ocean decade conference in these France, which I hope to be there.

1:40:07 Hopefully, I'll be great. So what are the main takeaways from from Busan? And how can we push that into the our ocean decade conference? Yeah, so I think that all these kind of international conferences events like the Irish and conference, the United Nation Ocean Conference, they're really important to ocean conservation because they serve as, I guess, a platform for optimism, they are a place where people, they're celebrated for the good work that they're doing. And they create this momentum around a topic or an issue and stakeholders go and they feel that and they want to be a part of that and they want to have something to contribute and to be celebrated for themselves.

1:40:51 And this environment leads to a lot of country commitments, you know, government standing on stage and promising that x square kilometers of ocean will be protected or why fisheries data will be published. And this might sound a little bit empty, but it's really important because without it, we can easily fall into a space where countries are very domestically focused, they don't feel any external pressure to keep following the curve. And therefore, you know, they're perfectly happy if lots of people are doing that and they're just staying in their lane. And so these conferences can really bring people along on a progressive journey that, you know, those countries might not have done anything at all otherwise.

1:41:31 And coming out of Busan, the most exciting commitment from Global Fishing Watches perspective was made by Panama. Panama announced that they will improve the transparency and accessibility of their ultimate beneficial ownership data for the international fishing fleet. And that's really significant because Panama has hundreds of vessels operate all around the world and they're going to be publishing a list of those owners. And that means that decision makers will have access to that when they need it, not, you know, months later. And so if there is an issue, it is the actual beneficiary that will be sanctioned, not the operators as we spoke about owners aren't able to kind of hide behind all these different structures.

1:42:13 It's clear this is the owner. And decision makers can use that information as part of their risk assessment criteria. You know, we spoke before about, hmm, I've had an issue with this odor in the past, maybe I'm going to prioritize looking at all the other vessels that are owned by the same person. Yeah. And, you know, maybe I'm not going to grant them a license or maybe I'm going to board and inspect. And Panama's leadership on this issue is is so much more valuable than just for the Panamanian fleet, because others will follow suit, right? They're standing up and they're leading and it creates this momentum. That's what I hope we can take from Busan into Nise. I hope that we can get to others talking about the topic and others considering these kind of common areas of pushback that this is like really resource intensive to do.

1:43:21 And I think that's what we're going to do. And I think that's what we're going to do. Yeah, and you're right. These conferences, international conference, we do see, you know, big press conferences on commitments that people make. And I do, I agree with you that we can, it allows us to hold them accountable, you know, it allows us and it even gives, I'm sure, an organization like Global Fishing Watch to be like, Oh, hey, we'd like to work with you to help you get there. You know, here's our experience and then we can help you. And then I think that's a great way to do it. But there's a lot of events that go on during these international conferences. How does Global Fishing Watch work?

1:44:07 And like, are you speaking with representatives from different countries, either through past contacts or meeting new contacts? Like, what's the approach? I always talk about going to a conference and everybody's got to have a strategy when you get there. I'm sure Global Fishing Watch does the same thing. What's the strategy when you approach these international conferences? And I think that's a great way to do it. My colleague, my colleagues will be a nice, yeah. Our CEO, our chief program officer and representatives from the International Policy Team will definitely be a nice. Yeah, it's a good question. I think there's two approaches. One is kind of turn up and speak to as many people as possible. Yeah. And the second is, you know, I think the first thing I'd like to do is to talk about the international conference. Yeah, it's a good question. I think there's two approaches. One is kind of turn up and speak to as many people as possible. Yeah. And the second is 99% of the work is done before you even get on the flight and we kind of take that that second approach. We start prepping probably at least four or five months before the conference. We're working normally with the conference organizers to see if there's anything we can do to help with the agenda, suggesting speakers, suggesting that we've been working with this country and they've got something really exciting. They might want to talk about in this plenary session or we've seen this latest development. It might make a really good case study for a side event. We would also be supporting the countries that we work with to navigate this as well, putting together a briefing pack, going through all the sessions, making sure the country can really make the most and talk about the stuff that we've been doing together in the international conference.

1:45:36 And so we're working together in each of the four that's relevant, perhaps helping to prepare speeches, things like that and reviewing those announcements, suggesting where it could be strengthened or made more exciting, more bulletproof. And then we're also looking at working on a plan for how that commitment is going to be implemented so that the government feels confident going in that they know the commitment is solid. They have a plan for doing it. But yeah, it's really exciting. It can be a lot of firefighting right at the very last minute. You know, ministers change, language requirements change, it's very varied, but it's a really cool part of international policy work.

1:46:20 I love it. I think it's I think it's really important. And I think, you know, I'm glad you were able to come on the podcast today. Very happy to be able to discuss policy. It's not something that we have to talk about all the time. A lot of time when Ocean hits the news, it's with an animal and, you know, fun things that happen. Or like, you know, recently, I think it was a couple months ago, a kayaker got swallowed up by a humpback or something like that. You know, you get news like that. But you don't get news in terms of what happens at these conferences, how organizations approach these conferences. You know, my goal is to get as many interviews as possible when I go to these these places and to find out as much information as possible, what's what's happening there. But I mean, that's a it's an important aspect. You know, these international conferences are important.

1:47:01 They play a big role in international work that's done after those conferences. And like I said, holding countries accountable and negotiating with countries to help them out and building your building your networks and building, you know, your frameworks for the future. So, Courtney, I want to thank you so much for spending time with me today and spending time with us at the audience to let us know not only what you and Global Fishing Watch do, but also what is on par for these these conferences and what has happened at the Our Ocean Conference. So I think it's really, really important. So thank you so much for joining us on today's episode. No, thank you so much for having me, Andrew. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Courtney, for joining us on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. It was great to be able to discuss what Global Fishing Watch does as well as the policies that they work on, the technology that they're working on, where technology is and where it needs to be and how it's being used is such an important part to tackle overfishing on a global scale.

1:47:55 And I think having an organization that's only 10 years old and being able to be a prominent figure in that world and having countries come to you for help is such a testament to how well they've done over that time when a new organization comes in, especially looking at fishing. A lot of people may see, oh, they're the overseers. They're gonna out people. They're gonna be more of an advocacy and activism organization. Then they come out and they say, no, this is what we do. And they show people, they execute what they do and how well they perform. And they just go show now where they're at a point where countries are coming to them like, hey, you know, we're here, you're working on, you know, transparency and fishing vessel tracking. Hey, can we find out how you're doing that? Because, you know, we have these policies and we want to make sure that we're doing it properly and you've been working on it.

1:48:37 They've specialized in it. I can't tell you enough how little resources some countries have, even including Canada, my own. We don't have a lot of staff when it comes to government and, you know, governments like to cut so they lower their resources. So we don't have a lot of people with eyes on fishing and trying to combat overfishing here in Canada, as well as other places in the world and other countries in the world. And so it's difficult to be able to just have people do it and have those resources do it. You need technology to help you out. And that's what we discussed here. And I thought I was addressing very, very well. I'm very enthusiastic about what can become and how AI and data learning and machine learning is working to help address things quickly and appropriately. So that's going to be a lot of fun. So if you have any questions or comments, you can leave in the comments below. And if you're watching this on YouTube or you can DM me at how to protect the ocean on Instagram. That's at how to protect the ocean.

1:49:24 Or you can go to our speak up for blue dot com site, hit the contact us, send me an email. I'd love to hear from you. It goes right to my personal email. I'll answer back within a week because I do get a lot of emails and I'm busy, but I would love to chat with you. That's the whole point there. So thank you so much. I do appreciate you listening. I do appreciate you joining us and I'll put all the links to Google fishing watch that you need to learn about. And I want to thank you for joining me on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin from the true North strong and free. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time and have a conservation.