Tuesday April 28, 2026
Global Seafood Alliance —
Until recently, efforts to curb illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing have focused on electronic monitoring (EM), with vessels using cameras, GPS trackers and sensors to record fishing activity to a hard drive.
The hundreds of hours of footage logged require manual review after a vessel returns to port, and by the time that review has been completed, often months after the fact, the catch has long since disappeared into the supply chain. The high cost of that review has been a barrier to widespread adoption of EM.
But that’s about to change as a result of AI. This week, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) releases Edge AI, artificial intelligence modules with high-powered processors that are installed on vessels and work interoperably with the vessels’ EM software. The modules review video footage of a vessel’s catch in real time. They isolate distinct fishing moments that are independently humanly verified on shore, reducing footage review time from months to minutes. Edge AI’s bycatch identification can be compared instantly to a captain’s catch report, to detect and flag any human under-reporting of fish landed.
Valued at over U.S. $1 million, TNC and its partner, Tryolabs, are making the code available free of charge in order to accelerate global adoption of EM.