Online Tracking of Ships Fights Illegal Fishing Worldwide

When Kiribati established its Phoenix Islands Protected Area in 2006, the central Pacific island nation at first kept 88% of the 408,250-square-kilometer marine reserve open for commercial fishing. That changed dramatically in January 2015, when the country made the area a no-take marine reserve.

A new technology that uses satellites and online mapping to display locations of commercial fishing vessels has proven the effectiveness of that no-take decision and helped Kiribati enforce the restriction.