Making global oceans governance in/visible with Smart Earth: The case of Global Fishing Watch

Abstract

The number and variety of technologies used for environmental surveillance is expanding rapidly, making constant data collection and near ‘real time’ analyses possible. ‘Smart Earth’ describes networked infrastructures comprised of devices and equipment and signals to the human dimensions inherent to developing, deploying and putting technology and large datasets to use. In this paper, we situate Smart Earth in terms of technological products and human practices and consider the relationship between Smart Earth and global environmental governance. Specifically, we review emerging literature and present a case study of an organization founded by environmental non-profit, SkyTruth, tech industry behemoth, Google and marine conservation NGO, Oceana. Called ‘Global Fishing Watch’ (GFW), this organization builds geospatial datasets, hosts an online mapping platform where anyone with internet access can surveil various types of ocean-going vessels and shares data and map products with scientists and practitioners. Two critical points emerge through the case. First, we show that GFW expands its surveillance capacity by pursuing ‘data sharing’ partnerships with sovereign states, many in the Global South. Second, the maps and datasets produced by GFW link vessels to a ‘flag state’ while the firms, subsidiaries and financiers that may own and/or operate these vessels remain obscure – and hence so too does the political economy of oceans fisheries. GFW maps and datasets offer new approaches to tracking fishing and are advancing fisheries science. At the same time, they rely on and are only legible through hegemonic geopolitical and political–economic orders deeply implicated in industrial (over)fishing. The norms and domains of global environmental governance are expanding, but Smart Earth ‘solutions’ risk leaving the structural drivers of environmental change unaddressed.

Clustering of disaggregated fisheries data reveals functional longline fleets across the Pacific

“…23,[109][110][111] With big ocean data restructuring the relationships between scientists, policymakers, and fisheries stakeholders, the resulting reconfiguration of power may be irreducible to whose interests are served. 112,113 Moving forward, policymakers and governments should identify strategies to diversify who benefits from the digital ocean ecosystem, empowering fishers and non-state groups such as RFMOs that may be unable to finance cutting-edge technology. 108 For environmental NGOs, the pursuit of high-profile initiatives capable of garnering public interest and philanthropic support should be balanced with the more mundane, but potentially transformative activities required to improve record-keeping, build digital infrastructure, and democratize data availability.…”

“…In an increasingly globalized economy where DW fishing has become more common 18 and corporate ownership of fishing vessels frequently transcends national borders and jurisdictions, 19,116 fleet designations based on flag state and gear type alone likely fail to capture the operational distinctions driving at-sea variation in behavior and decision-making. 113 Although much of the current discourse surrounding high seas fisheries focuses on the identification of nations responsible for IUU fishing, in the short-term such characterizations may function to (1) obscure the transnational seafood actors and supply chains driving such behaviors 116,117 and (2) dissuade national fisheries organizations and agencies from sharing data and participating in collaborative management processes. Where previous work has documented regional patterns of observed 29 and unauthorized high seas transshipment activity, 118 port usage, 31 and vessel ownership 19 by flag state, in the future functional fishing fleets identified on the basis of such metrics could be used to identify the specific actors, markets, and supply chains associated with such activities and, where called for, aid in the design of the targeted interventions needed to disrupt them.…”

Smart oceans governance: Reconfiguring capitalist, colonial, and environmental relations

“…By focusing on the case of ONC, our analysis has shown how the functional integration of diverse aspects of the state apparatus -from marine mammal risk assessment to Indigenous community engagement -can proceed through the socio-technical regimes of smart oceans governance. The result, in our case, is a more state-centric account of contemporary ocean governance politics, but one that retains the important attention to novel third-party actors and distributed technological networks featured in recent geographical work in this area (e.g., Drakopolus et al, 2022;Fairbanks et al, 2019;Havice et al, 2022). On the west coast of Canada, the rapid growth of smart oceans governance must be understood in a political economic context characterised by the expansion of extractive infrastructures placing inten-sified social and ecological pressures on unceded and waters.…”

“…The tightening relationship between ONC and the federal government must be understood within the context of growing international attention on ocean governance over the last two decades (Drakopolus et al, 2022, np). The relationship also speaks to the now hegemonic status of ‘datafied’ and ‘data‐driven’ governance within all manner of state administration.…”

Where are rooted networks in digital political ecologies?

“…to algorithms monitoring fishing vessel locations to identify incidences of illegal fishing (Drakopulos et al, 2022a), technology is integral to topics typically of interest to political ecologists. This attention to digital technologies is encouraging, but we have observed in the writing of some of our political ecology colleagues (and sometimes ourselves) a treatment of 'the digital' ontologically as abstract, vast and universal.…”