It is estimated that 30% of global fish catch is currently unreported, with illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing vessels thought to extract up to 26 million tonnes of fish annually. Through the exploitation of governance loopholes and weak fisheries enforcement, IUU fishing affects fisheries sectors of all types and sizes and is a major threat to marine ecological productivity and global food security.

The xView3 challenge seeks to advance the fight against IUU fishing and harness satellite data to detect ‘dark’ fishing vessels. Fishing vessels are regarded as ‘dark’ when they deliberately switch off their satellite identification systems, preventing their fishing movements from being tracked. Active remote sensing through satellite technology has the potential to fill the monitoring gaps left by dark vessels and improve the efficacy of IUU enforcement around the world.

This challenge has two prize pools, the DIU Prize pool open to US-based entities and the Global Fishing Watch Prize Pool open to all.

\ Click the link to learn more about the xView3 Challenge and check out our World Ocean Day blog post which celebrates the work of xView3 partner Global Fishing Watch in combating IUU fishing.