OceanMind selects Spire Global as AIS data provider in effort to combat illegal fishing

OceanMind, which provides monitoring, control and surveillance support, capacity building, and intelligence to governments, fisheries authorities, and seafood supply chains globally, has extended its agreement with Spire Global to provide real-time automatic identification system (AIS) vessel-tracking data for the nonprofit’s anti-illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing efforts.

OceanMind uses Spire’s AIS solution to monitor compliance with fishing rules around the world and to provide actionable intelligence to fisheries enforcement officials, seafood buyers, and non-governmental organizations regarding illegal fishing.

Vienna, Virginia, U.S.A.-based Spire Global is a publicly traded manufacturer of space-based technology and a provider of data analytics and services. It builds, owns, and operates a fully deployed satellite constellation that observes the Earth in real-time using radio frequency technology. The data acquired by Spire’s satellites provides global weather intelligence, ship and plane movements, and spoofing and jamming detection to better predict how travel patterns impact economies, global security, business operations, and the environment, the company said. Spire has eight offices across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Luxembourg, and Singapore.

“Spire's comprehensive AIS data suite serves as a keystone underpinning OceanMind's mission to combat IUU fishing worldwide,” Nick Wise CEO OceanMind said in a press release. “The breadth and depth of capabilities offered by Spire's solution empower us to effectively notify fisheries authorities about non-compliance within their waters and help direct enforcement efforts to stop tainted catch from entering the supply chain. To date, we have verified over USD 600 million [EUR 546 million] worth of tuna imports entering the global market.”

According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), IUU fishing results in the loss of 11 to 26 million tons of fish annually, an estimated economic value of USD 10 billion to USD 23 billion (EUR 9.1 billion to EUR 20.9 billion).

Established in 2015, OceanMind was born out of an earlier partnership between The Pew Charitable Trusts and Satellite Applications Catapult, part of a network of U.K. technology companies designed to spur economic growth through commercializing research. Wise told SeafoodSource in 2018 that while there are several organizations that do similar monitoring work, OceanMind stands out because its experts understand fisheries and are able to process the data in a way that provides a holistic picture of fishing practices. 

“[Our fisheries’ experts] take the information provided by the computers and use that as a launch-pad for their investigations,” he said. “We use computer information to prioritize and filter what our team of experts need to look at, and the team of analysts review and filter it further. When we pass information along to our customers, it’s extremely specific and relevant to their situation.”

Photo courtesy of OceanMind