In 2016, a platform aimed at using data to drive transparency and supply chain accountability in the notoriously opaque fisheries sector was launched by Google, Oceana, and SkyTruth. Global Fishing Watch would share vessels’ publicly broadcast location data and sought to bring in governments’ proprietary data too, announcing its first partnerships with Indonesia in 2017 and Peru a year later.
From the start, GFW attracted donor funding: $10.3 million at launch — $6 million of which came from the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation — with other support from the Marisla Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Wyss Foundation, The Waterloo Foundation, and Adessium Foundation. John Amos, the founder of SkyTruth, even said GFW would “improve the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the planet.”
But nearly six years later, the results have been mixed. GFW says Indonesia stopped sharing vessels’ location data in 2020. And while the platform has been used by academics, international groups, and others, it’s unclear whether illegal, unreported, and unregulated — or IUU — fishing is any less of a problem now compared with 2016.