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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial><FONT size=5><STRONG>Google Earth enables remote
tracking of fish catches</STRONG></FONT><BR>Ola Al-Ghazawy</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>15/01/14<BR><A
href="http://www.scidev.net/global/fisheries/news/google-earth-enables-remote-tracking-of-fish-catches.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=SciDev.Net&utm_campaign=3562025_20%2f01%2f13-Newsletter+GLOBAL&dm_i=1SCG,24CH5,AZS4ZM,7NK1Y,1">http://www.scidev.net/global/fisheries/news/google-earth-enables-remote-tracking-of-fish-catches.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=SciDev.Net&utm_campaign=3562025_20%2f01%2f13-Newsletter+GLOBAL&dm_i=1SCG,24CH5,AZS4ZM,7NK1Y,1</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial><BR>[CAIRO] Persian Gulf governments could use
Google’s free global satellite imaging program to better monitor and control
fishing in their waters, say experts. Their comments follow a study that used
Google Earth to uncover huge discrepancies between reported and observed fish
catches in the region.<BR> <BR>The study, which tracked fishing from space,
found that actual catches taken from Persian Gulf fisheries could be six times
greater than the official numbers the Gulf states reported to the UN’s Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO).<BR> <BR>Researchers from the University of
British Columbia (UBC) in Canada used Google Earth to count, for the first time,
intertidal fishing weirs — an old technique used to catch fish by placing
obstructions across tidal waters. They examined six countries on the Persian
Gulf: Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates.<BR> <BR>The study, which was published last year (27 November) in
ICES Journal of Marine Science, highlights the unreliability of some countries’
official reports to the FAO. It found 1,900 weirs were operational in the
countries surveyed in 2005 and estimated their combined production that year at
approximately 31,000 tonnes of fish — more than six times the combined total of
5,000 tonnes the six countries reported to the FAO that
year.<BR> <BR>“Underreporting fish catches can jeopardise a country’s food
security and economy, not to mention impact entire marine ecosystems,” says
Dalal Al-Abdulrazzak, the study’s first author.<BR> <BR>Al-Abdulrazzak, a
PhD student at UBC, says she hopes her technique and other remote sensing
satellite tools could be used to complement existing methods of monitoring
fisheries and set more appropriate management targets in the Middle East and
North Africa.<BR><BR>“Countries report their catches voluntarily to the FAO, and
the quality of a country’s data is based on its national capacity to collect
that data,” Al-Abdulrazzak tells SciDev.Net. A whole host of issues can affect
the quality of these data, including resource limitations and political
interference.<BR> <BR>SciDev.Net asked for a comment from the Saudi Arabian
department that reports these data, but received no reply.<BR> <BR>The
research team faced several challenges while gathering data. For example, some
countries failed to provide complete data sets on their catches to the FAO,
making comparisons with the scientists’ observed figures
impossible.<BR> <BR>And for some areas of the coast, including parts of the
Iraqi shoreline, the images were of too low a resolution to be able to see the
fish weirs. As a result, the researchers were unable to include these regions in
their studies, so the figures may still underrepresent catches.<BR> <BR>Yet
Al-Abdulrazzak says the technique’s insights far outweigh its limitations. She
says it could help enforce fishing regulations in remote or inaccessible areas.
It also allows researchers to monitor fishing in poor countries that spend
little on ecological management themselves, she adds.<BR> <BR>“Using Google
Earth is a powerful technique, and I think it will have a great role especially
in monitoring, controlling and providing surveillance of the fishing process in
many countries,” says Gamal El-Naggar, of World Fish research centre in
Egypt.<BR> <BR>Adel Ahmed Tharwat, professor of fish resources and
ecosystems at King Faisal University in Saudi Arabia, says: “Gulf countries
should be expanding the use of satellite remote sensing in fisheries management,
as this would help in building a concrete database for fishing inventory numbers
and distributions in this region.”<BR><BR>This satellite information, combined
with field data, should help officials make appropriate decisions on managing
fisheries and will become an important part of the development of fisheries and
food security plans in the Gulf countries, says
Tharwat.<BR><BR></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>