FishGuard is a partnership between TMT, tech start-up ATLAN Space and GRID Arendal’s Environmental Crime Programme, aimed at promoting the use of low-cost drones for the monitoring of large ocean areas, with a focus on developing coastal and small island States where conventional aerial and naval fisheries patrol assets are lacking or too costly to run on a regular basis.
In 2018 the initiative was selected as one of the three winners of the National Geographic Marine Protection Prize, aimed at promoting emerging technology and data collection to effectively detect illegal fishing.
The field trials conducted under the partnership have been conducted in the Seychelles, with a focus on using long-range drones equipped with Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect and assess fishing operations at sea, and identify and communicate potential illegal activities for further action by enforcement authorities.
FishGuard is a drone-neutral initiative which will aim at testing various applications of drone technology in the field with a view to develop best practices and operational procedures for use by fisheries MCS personnel and partner agencies.
Find out more about the initiative by downloading this introduction PDF.
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