In March, after almost two decades of debate, UN member states approved a landmark agreement to protect marine life on the high seas.
Although two-thirds of the world’s oceans are considered high seas, i.e., outside national jurisdiction, only 1% of this area is currently protected, the rest is largely unregulated and prone to overfishing. or at risk of contamination.
A new UN convention seeks to address this problem by creating a framework for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity in these areas, including through the creation of marine protected areas.
“A treaty is not a perfect solution,” says Professor Octavio Aburto of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in San Diego, California. “But at least now we have a framework in place so that we can begin to work to end the irresponsible exploitation of the high seas.”
These waters are home to rich biodiversity and diverse ecosystems, including deep-sea corals and migratory animals. Because oceans and marine organisms absorb large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, they also play an important role in regulating the Earth’s climate. Storing them is essential to stabilizing the climate system.
But the high seas are so remote and vast that there are inherent challenges in monitoring, let alone protecting them. The lack of ecological information also makes it difficult to identify particularly vulnerable areas and develop conservation strategies.
Here machine learning, satellite imagery and other innovative technologies can fill the gap.
Monitoring illegal fishing
Several organizations are already combining satellite imagery and machine learning to detect illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in real time and publishing the results on free-to-use online platforms.
For example, Global Fishing Watch hosts interactive online maps that use data from vessel transceivers to track vessel movements and estimate commercial fishing efforts. In this way, vessels can be tracked across countries’ exclusive economic zones, marine protected areas and high seas. However, since it relies on communications from the vessel, it may “black out” and disable the tracking device. Global Phishing Watch explained that this was not necessarily intentional and was a “big red flag”.
Other efforts are looking to the skies to identify anomalous behavior at sea. Developed by the nonprofit Allen Institute for AI (AI2), Skylight is a surveillance platform that uses satellite imagery to provide timely information to fisheries authorities.
Ted Schmidt, Conservation Director at AI2 and Head of the Skylight Program, said the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA) is particularly important in combating fishing crime. It will help countries coordinate to stop IUU fishing vessels from landing their catch, and will be the first binding international agreement specifically aimed at IUU fishing.
Skylight interface: The fish icon (left circle) shows where the AI software has detected fishing activity based on analytical data from vessels that periodically send their positions. The red square (right circle) is the ‘dark vessel’. This means that no vessel has shared location data, but the satellite imagery shared with Skylight suggests the presence of a vessel. This is a strong “red flag” for illegal fishing activity. (Image: skylight)
“To put the brakes on this policy, countries and NGOs are using Skylight to identify suspicious activity such as potential transshipment events in port authorities enforcing PSMA measures,” he added. .
The technology uses tools such as satellite imagery, “computer vision” and machine learning to analyze data and detect suspicious activity in real time. Since the high seas are by definition distant waters, it is impractical for boats and patrols to monitor them.
Computer vision is a branch of AI that enables computers to find important information in digital images and videos to take or recommend actions. According to IBM, “Just as AI enables computers to think, computer vision enables them to see, observe and understand.”
“We have to at least perform remote sensing to know where we need to monitor. Mr Schmidt said.
Criminals try to get ahead by shutting down tracking systems to avoid detection near protected or restricted areas, requiring developers to work faster and stay ahead of the curve. It is
To support this technology, Skylight provides training to government representatives and NGOs. The Joint Analytical Cell (JAC), a group of organizations that includes Global Fishing Watch and another monitoring platform Trygg Mat Tracking, strives to ensure technology reaches the right people and achieves its purpose.
Skylight is currently primarily focused on monitoring exclusive economic zones, but as the High Seas Treaty evolves, the platform will reportedly develop systems to extend its coverage in distant waters. Schmidt told China Dialogue Ocean that the challenge is accessing satellite imagery on the high seas, and the JAC could help improve access as free imagery is often unavailable and expensive to obtain. is an area where
Which areas need protection? GPS animals may have the answer
A major outcome of the High Seas Treaty is to help establish marine protected areas in these waters. But how are these designated? What should be prioritized when deciding to protect parts of the ocean?
For example, in the Northeast Atlantic high seas, six protected sites were established in 2010 under the Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment in the Northeast Atlantic, commonly referred to as the OSPAR Convention. Since then, four more OSPAR Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have been designated.
A 2021 paper published in the Journal of Applied Ecology describes how the first six OSPAR sites are designated primarily based on benthic features, including shatter zones and seamounts, i.e., the lowest layers near the seafloor. Taka is explained. However, the authors, like others, argued that other marine organisms, such as seabirds, were not taken into account. Animal tracking data can be helpful in these situations.
Researchers tag humpback whales with satellite trackers to study their transoceanic migration routes (Image: Luciano Candisani/Alamy)
Marine biologist Guy Harvey is a proponent of this approach. His organization, the Guy Harvey Foundation, uses his GPS tracking of marine animals to highlight potential his MPA sites.
For example, Harvey tagged a whale shark near Mexico’s Caribbean coast in 2018, which by 2022 will travel down through the Gulf of Mexico into Columbia waters, up the coast of Florida, and into the high waters of the Atlantic Ocean. It entered and traveled 31,000 kilometers through the Caribbean Sea. To sea again before arriving in Cuba.
At the Our Ocean Conference in Panama this March, Harvey explained that such mapping helps us understand migration patterns and habitats, and suggest MPA sites. Harvey explained that when you compare this data to areas already protected, you often see false correlations.
Elsewhere, there are also efforts to use data on bird migration patterns to determine important marine areas. BirdLife International, a global partnership of NGOs, analyzed the tracks of his 2,000 seabirds based on the Seabird Tracking Database. The report identified an Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA), now named the North Atlantic Current and Evlanov Sea MPA (NACES MPA).
Up to 5 million birds use the area year-round, making it an important gathering place for migratory seabirds from around the world. NACES, the first MPA to use tracking data to support identification, will be formally designated by the OSPAR Commission in 2021 and covers an area larger than the land masses of the United Kingdom and Germany combined, but its reach and management discussions are still ongoing.
make the tool work
There are several other technological tools that could help protect the high seas, among them autonomous submarines that explore the high seas floor and the satellite-monitoring nonprofit Skytruth, which is working to identify oil spills. . The latter provided the first evidence that the BP oil spill from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident was significantly larger than originally estimated.
“All these tools are already moving very quickly, but the big challenge now is to see how they fit into decision-making,” said Octavio Aburto. He said such tools were “still at a very technical and scientific stage,” and governments lacked the resources and capacity to train navies and armed forces for surveillance and enforcement on the high seas. added that there are many
Whether current practices are unsustainable or depleting fish stocks, the need to balance commitments and commercial interests may create obstacles to effective protection of the high seas. There is As the treaty is implemented, it should also become clearer how it will actually interact with other existing agreements, such as those governing shipping under the International Maritime Organization.
The lack of a global governance framework makes it impossible to take a coordinated approach to conservation activities on the high seas. The High Seas Treaty provides the possibility for governments and civil society to make proposals for protection on the high seas. The consequences will become apparent as the treaty is implemented over the next few years.
