“Electronic monitoring is beginning to deliver on its potential to lower fishermen’s costs, provide scientists with better data, restore trust where it’s broken, and ultimately help consumers gain a greater understanding of where their seafood is coming from,” wrote Meg Wilcox in Civil Eats.
Supporting the development and piloting of cost-effective options for electronic monitoring, and then fostering broader uptake have been core to our Marine Conservation Initiative, as an important means of ensuring healthy and resilient ocean ecosystems that can sustain future generations. In order for fisheries management to be effective, managers must know how many fish are being caught and discarded. This has remained a challenge in New England, and putting cameras on boats is one way of addressing the issue in order to end overfishing.
For more than a decade, the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen's Alliance, Gulf of Maine Research Institute, The Nature Conservancy, Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and their partners have been piloting the use of electronic monitoring systems on fishing vessels, instead of human at-sea monitors. On-board cameras allow for the verification of logbook data and documentation of discards, and the prevention of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. They also provide important fishery data, which in turn provide real-time information to help refine catch limits and other conservation measures, allowing improved and adaptive management for the fisheries’ long-term health.
Other challenges remain, including the hefty expense to analyze and store the data these systems gather, but the proverbial tide has turned and these costs are expected to decline over time. Increasingly, there is wider recognition of the advantages that technology provides fishermen. Video tracking also benefits consumers who have had difficulty tracing the origin and supply chain of so many of the fish that eventually land on our plates. And commercial application of artificial intelligence promises soon to make even the costly analysis and review a concern of the past.
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