OceanMind

OceanMind is a not-for-profit organisation that powers marine enforcement and compliance to protect the ocean’s ability to provide for human wellbeing. OceanMind aims at supporting governmental authorities and food suppliers, mainly seafood buyers, by combining maritime expertise and knowledge with advanced technologies. Originally launched in 2014 as the “Project Eyes on the Seas”, resulting from a collaboration between the Satellite Applications Catapult and Pew Charitable Trusts, OceanMind became a new independent not-for-profit organisation in 2018.

The challenge

Overfishing is one of the main factors causing the decline of the ocean’s wildlife populations. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), between 2017 and 2018, 1/3 of global fish stocks are classified as overfished and no longer biologically sustainable. In Europe, about 38% of the fish in the North-East Atlantic and the Baltic Sea is overfished. In the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, this percentage reaches 87% in total. Aggressive and destructive fishing methods are indeed one of the principal threats to biodiversity and habitats. For example, Fish Aggregation Devices (FADs) dramatically increase catch rates and reduce the resource and effort required per catch. Nevertheless, they also result in higher levels of bycatch, particularly of vulnerable species. In addition, often FADs are lost, adding to the marine waste problem. Validate the fishing methods for seafood suppliers is relevant today to provide the consumers with a sustainable product.

The satellite solution

In 2017, the OceanMind team developed an independent validation of source, legality, and fishing methods. The methodology merges a wide variety of data, including Vessel Monitoring System (VSM) data, Automatic Identification System (AIS) data, fishing vessels’ authorisations, and oceanographic and geospatial data derived from satellite images collected through multiple sources, including private companies as Spire, and Earthwatch, that represent the main validation tool for OceanMind.

The output of this data analysis is a risk assessment report delivered by OceanMind to their partners, mainly seafood suppliers and food retailers, to support traceability and inform their buying decisions. The multi-layered information analysis on the seafood supply chain allows users to verify the claims of the fishing practices made by a supplier and provides information on any suspected illegal behaviour.

The results

OceanMind developed its first report on FAD fishing methods for the British food retailer Sainsbury’s to validate the fishing methods adopted by the vessels in their tuna supply chain. OceanMind and Sainsbury’s are working together to ensure a long term and independent feedback mechanism to validate the legality and responsibility of tuna suppliers from the moment of capture. This approach can impact significantly fishing techniques and could serve as a case study for other supply chains such as agriculture.

Leveraging on OceanMind data and assessment, Sainsbury’s farmed fish sources are today 100% certified, and 82.3% of their wild-caught fish and seafood is considered as sustainable and environmentally friendly by the UK Marine Stewardship Council standards. The 2019 estimations from Sainsbury’s, highlighted that verified FAD-free tuna represents 90% of Sainsbury’s canned tuna offer and approximately 9% of their total fish sale.

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Vake

Vake is a Norwegian company specialised in maritime safety and vessel traffic. The company was founded in 2019. It supports governmental agencies to monitor and survey national waters, offshore asset owners to detect dark vessels and reduce potential infrastructure threats and ship insurers to validate and verify the true chain of events.

The challenge

Back in 2008, the European Commission defined maritime domain awareness as the understanding of the activities associated with the maritime area that could impact the safety, security, economy and environment of the European Union and Member States. Acquiring a complete understanding of what happens at sea is relevant today due to the increased maritime traffic and activities in our oceans that are generating multiple threats to core sectors of the economy and to the breaching national security of coastal countries.

Illegal fishing, smuggling, and environmental crimes are the main challenges to be overcome. Detecting and identifying potential criminal vessels is key to filling information gaps and preventing illegal behaviours at sea. Technology already supports governmental authorities and businesses in spotting illicit activities, via drones, airborne sensors, and cameras, but satellite data can help in monitoring wide areas validating the in-situ measurements.

The satellite solution

To support governmental authorities and maritime economic actors, VAKE developed a dashboard that combines two core features: area monitoring and vessel tracking. The platform allows users to detect ships by using data from the Copernicus Sentinel-2 satellites and machine learning, cross-referenced with other vessel monitoring solutions, such as the Automatic Identification System (AIS) signal, that relies on GNSS technology.

The dashboard allows users to select their area of interest and a temporal frame to obtain data on the ships there located, such as their size and direction. Users can access the images and information in the form of an interactive web report or download the data as a report file. In addition, the dashboard allows for the detection of dark and potentially illegal ships. Users can monitor their area of interest to verify if suspicious vessels are sailing with their AIS signal off, which can be an indicator for potentially illegal activities. By highlighting when this happens, it is possible to prevent these actions or retrace the route of criminals to determine if an action just happened or is it going to happen.

The results

VAKE’s dashboard is helping national authorities to improve sea monitoring, especially for the implementation of fishing analysis, and to prevent and prosecute environmental crimes. The algorithms that power the VAKE platform can also find additional applications to detect human trafficking, smuggling and seawater emissions.

Currently, VAKE is working with the Netherlands Coast Guard to complement and improve their maritime situational awareness. The collaboration with Vake allows the Coast Guard to extract insights on maritime activities from satellite data covering a wider portion of sea than the area they currently monitor. In the next future, VAKE and the Netherlands Coast Guard will combine automating alerts and collection of insights across multiple types of sensors, that will be key assets for maritime authorities.

VAKE is also working on expanding their geographical reach, including North and South America, and Australia. Furthermore, to provide users with night images, VAKE is currently developing products that include SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) satellite imagery.

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