Did you know that most of the global fish supply comes from the Southern Ocean? Me neither…
Encouragingly, a growing part of that fishing is carried out on small boats by islanders and coastal dwellers who need the work. In the Maldives, for example, fishing accounts for 30% of the National Economy.
How are local boats able to access such a heavily regulated market? Buyers such as supermarkets, for example, need to see a paperwork chain which guarantees the fish they’re buying was caught with legal methods, from safe boats which provide fair working conditions.
Enter the world of fishing fleet monitoring.
Integrated Monitoring Inc. in partnership with local Broadband and Mobile operator Ooredoo Maldives , began a five-year program for the Maldives Ministry of Fisheries Marine Resources and Agriculture to fit 730 small vessels in the Maldives with their Fleet One surveillance and monitoring system – a programme funded by the World Bank.
The system includes GPS tracking and up to four high-resolution, low-light, tilt pan and zoom cameras able to discern movement and activities of interest. These high definition cameras allow identification of the fish species as it comes over the side.
Initially, not every fishing-boat owner can see the benefits of being tracked and monitored – and there’s a very real fear that the monitoring equipment could drain the ship’s battery so deeply that the engine can’t be re-started. (Fishing boats often spend the night drifting, engine off.)
That’s where Integrated Monitoring’s long experience and understanding of the industry rise to the surface. All monitoring installations are provided with a Battery Protect 65A which disconnects non-essential loads whenever the battery voltage falls below a pre-set level – ensuring that the battery always retains sufficient power to operate the stater motor. The Battery Protect devices are locally supplied in the Maldives by Marine Equipments.
Iain Hayes of Integrated Monitoring says: We did a lot of product testing until we found the Victron Battery Protect 65A. That single inexpensive device guarantees the vessel’s safety by ensuring there will be sufficient power to start the engine.
As to the rest of the crew’s concerns, the monitoring system brings a raft of personal benefits: Electronic catch reporting makes light work of the admin; Email and Social Media connection allows the offshore crew to stay in touch with friends; Video and voice calling allows them to check-in with their families at home. For the boat owners and fleet operators regulation-compliant fish attracts a higher price when it’s landed, and from a safety point-of-view they always know where their vessels are.
These are persuasive benefits in exchange for using legal gear to fish for abundant species, with happy crews who receive fair rewards and liberties.
What about the time laid up in port having the system fitted? …and what about getting installation technicians to remote locations? Iain again: The surveillance installation can be fitted in an hour-and-a-half …and we’ve got that down from just four hours! As for skilled labour, knowing how these fleets work we simply trained local engineers who were already employed in maintaining the fishing fleets in their home ports.
Satellite datacoms at sea – in this case provided by Inmarsat – will always be expensive. For that reason the computer-controlled monitoring cameras are quite discerning about the data they record and transmit. This allows an 80% saving in data transmission. Routine monitoring information is saved to a 1 TB hard drive, the contents of which are downloaded back in port using Ooredoo Maldives cellular network.
When Iain’s work is complete in the Maldives, Integrated Monitoring have their sights set on the Indonesian small fishing fleet – a market of around 10,000 boats.
And the roll-out won’t stop there: in the longer term Iain hopes to offer monitoring to most of the 50,000 small or private fishing boats in the South East Asia region; driving up standards and ensuring fish-stocks remain sustainable.
