Intelligent Drones Crack Down on illegal Fishing in African Waters
16 July, 2018 (UN Environment)* — Young entrepreneur Badr Idrissi never waited to be told what to do. Instead, he looked for innovative solutions to problems. He would often take the family TV or video recorder to pieces. “My parents would always tell me to put it back together!” he says. “But that’s how I learned to fix things.”
Badr Idrissi, CEO of ATLAN Space, Photo by Startup Istanbul | Photo from UN Environment.
Depending on the number of hotspots which need to be monitored, one drone can cover 10,000 kilometers squared.
They fly at an altitude beyond 300 meters, making them unreachable by non-military means.
“If the drone is 95 percent sure that behavior is illegal, it will send the relevant local authorities information detailing the time of the occurrence, the GPS coordinates, the location and any other relevant data that will help them decide on the course of action,” he says.
The novelty of the technology lies in its ability to bypass the need for human intervention over long distances. The drones can cover a large area and make autonomous decisions. For example, two drones can communicate and ‘decide’ to split up and track two different boats.
But Idrissi’s vision is not to replace humans altogether. “Our technology is there to help people do their jobs more effectively. Illegal activities destroy jobs, for example in the tourism industry,” he says.
ATLAN Spacehas won a National Geographic award to fund its “FishGuard pilot” partnership, which will deploy the drones for the first time, to tackle illegal fishing in the Republic of Seychelles.
FishGuard is a unique partnership that includes in addition to ATLAN Space, Trygg Mat Tracking – a Norwegian analytical non-profit and Grid-Arendal – an international organization, to provide technological solutions to combat illegal fishing.
Idrissi estimates that this system costs half of what is already commercially available on the market, making it a highly cost effective option for tackling illegal activity, especially among emerging economies.
“The deployment cost of the FishGuard solution depends on many parameters and is specific to each project. It doesn’t only include the technological element, but also capacity building and an ecosystem to build a sustainable ocean resources management strategy,” says Idrissi.
“This is about more than detecting crime: we can build marine protection capacity; understand trends and patterns to see the bigger picture of what is happening at sea. We expect this will have a deterrent effect, because people will see that the area is monitored,” he says.
After deploying its solution in the Seychelles, Idrissi plans to expand the model to tackle other environmental problems like deforestation and illegal mining in future.
Idrissi believes that while there is much potential for startups like his in Africa, entrepreneurs and innovators still face challenges. “I do feel that today we focus on educating young people about how to be an employee. That doesn’t allow people to be creative – and that is risky.”
UN Environment Regional Information Officer for Africa, Mohamed Atani, notes that supporting young entrepreneurs in Africa is critical for sustainable development, and for finding more innovative solutions like FishGuard in future.
“Today more than ever, we need young people like Idrissi, who understand challenges in Africa, and who find solutions for which there is great demand,” says Atani.
“Entrepreneurs are not people who fail to find a job – they have immense vision for the future. We must support that.”
*SOURCE: UN Environment. Go to ORIGINAL.
Source: https://human-wrongs-watch.net/2018/07/16/intelligent-drones-crack-down-on-illegal-fishing-in-african-waters/
