July 6, 2022-The new documentary “Fishing Smarter”, from the Environmental Defense Fund, reveals how digital technology solutions can revolutionize fisheries to improve sustainability and profitability.
Released last October, the new film, “Fishing Smarter”, from Environmental Defense Fund, is a 20-minute documentary that reveals how, from the United States to Indonesia, fishermen are adopting innovative solutions to help revolutionize fisheries to improve sustainability, profitability and community resilience. “Fishing Smarter: How new technology can help our oceans thrive” was presented at the 2021 Florida Environmental Film Festival and the Wildlife Conservation Film Festival.
Watch as small-scale fishers, fishery managers and other stakeholders explore the ways new and emerging technologies strengthen the health, sustainability and profitability of their local catches and ecosystems. From blue swimming crab in Indonesia to curvina in Mexico’s Gulf of California, innovative uses of technology in fisheries are making a real-world difference. The documentary also shows how fishermen in the United States are adopting new technologies, like electronic monitoring, onboard their vessels, and reflects on some of the privacy challenges they may create and and what’s being made to solve them.
During the summer of 2015 an important milestone was reached, as every boat in the U.S. Atlantic longline fleet was equipped with a video monitoring system. Almost one year later, in February, scientists and fishermen working together to design electronic monitoring systems, agreed on one thing: although the system is going to be a key part of fishing ships in the future, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.
One thing is true: these new technologies hold promise in making data collection more timely, accurate, and cost-efficient. To learn more about how NOAA Fisheries is investing in technology fishermen use to track their catch follow the link to the page under the title Electronic Monitoring Explained.