Fishing Vessel Monitoring Systems: Past, Present and Future

VMS: Past, Present and Future 39
6.4 Networking solutions
Were there no central organization, the most logical solution would be to serve
the needs of data distribution by implementing a wide-area network consisting of
data gathering systems operated by regional fisheries organizations. This
approach would require a higher degree of technical co-operation than the more
centralized architecture in that it would require communication between an
inevitably broad range of information technology installations, each developed
according to an individual functional and technical specification.
On a functional basis, the overall network would consist of a series of
connections between regional organizations. For security reasons, it is likely that
data access would be handled on a query clearinghouse basis, rather than by
direct access. In an operational scenario, a coastal state requiring data on a
given vessel would address a request to its own regional fisheries organization.
That organization would respond with any data it already held on the vessel and
address the request to all of the other organizations that made up the network.
These entities would, in turn, address their data to the original regional
organization, which would forward the responses to their member.
The very complexity of such an operation underlines the fact that the only
advantage of such an implementation, in fact, would be political: there would be
no need to reach international agreement on a single entity for world-wide data
storage and distribution. Were it possible to reach such agreement, however, the
overall effort would benefit from simpler, more reliable operations and lower
operating costs.
6.5 Nascent international cooperation
Encouragingly, there is already some concrete indication of desire and
willingness to share data on IUU vessels at the international level. Perhaps the
most active organization at the moment is the North East Atlantic Fisheries
Commission, based in London, that maintains two list of vessels known, or
suspected of IUU activity.
When one of its contracting parties reports a vessel as likely IUU, it is entered
into NEAFC’s “A list”. This puts the vessel operators on notice of the suspicions
and gives them an opportunity to clear it. One year later, assuming that the
vessel remains suspect, it moves to NEAFC’s “B-list” where it remains
“permanently”, or at least until a decision is made, by the NEAFC annual
assembly, to remove it. The identities of vessels entered on both lists are
available to the public on the NEAFC website.