IUU fishing happens far beyond the reach of coast guards — often in the open ocean where there’s little to no monitoring.

 Many illegal vessels switch off AIS (Automatic Identification System) to avoid detection, creating dangerous “dark fleets.”

 IUU vessels often overfish or use banned gear like drift nets that destroy entire ecosystems in one go.

 They mix illegal catch with legal fish, making it nearly impossible to trace where your seafood really comes from.

 Local fishers and small coastal communities suffer — IUU operations steal from their waters and undercut their markets.

Globally, IUU fishing costs economies up to $23.5 billion per year.

 Without satellites and AI, these crimes go unpunished — but now we can detect vessel behavior patterns, routes, and fishing intensity using space-based data.

 Global Fishing Watch and other partners make this data public, allowing citizens, governments, and NGOs to expose crimes in near real-time.

 Transparency is the first step toward justice — tracking data has already led to arrests, fines, and policy change in multiple countries.