Case Study: Global Fishing Watch achieves global fishing transparency to expose illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing with Spire

Illuminating global fishing activity with satellite AIS tracking

Global Fishing Watch, an independent non-profit focused on ocean sustainability, needed a way to detect illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and bring transparency to activity on the high seas where vessels historically disappeared from oversight. To meet that challenge it turned to Spire and Spire’s satellite AIS tracking feed and nanosatellite constellation to collect global vessel position, identity and behavior data far beyond terrestrial receiver range.

Using Spire’s AIS data (including Dynamic AIS coverage) and analytics, Global Fishing Watch built machine‑learning models to classify vessels and gear, identify when and where ships fished, detect transshipment and location‑spoofing, and even map ocean noise. The Spire feed helped GFW scale from roughly 3 million to about 60 million data points a day covering some 300,000 vessels, and supported outcomes such as the U.S. Coast Guard identifying eight times as many IUU violations in 2019 (25 of them severe), dramatically improving global fishing transparency.

Global Fishing Watch

Paul Woods

Chief Information Officer