has been seriously under-reported<\/a>. Box believes having this data is key to slowing\u2014or even reversing\u2014the intractable overfishing that is occurring on the world\u2019s coasts.<\/p>\nIn 2015, Box began developing OurFish, an Android application that allows fish buyers to ditch their pencil and use the smartphone they already have to digitally log their purchases.<\/p>\n
When tallying up a purchase, the buyer selects the species of fish from a series of photos\u2014bypassing potential literacy and language barriers. Importantly, says Box, the app is designed to not disrupt buyers\u2019 work. Buyers can also scan a code unique to each fisherman, connecting each transaction to a specific person. If a fisherman\u2019s boat is outfitted with a GPS tracker, the catch can be matched to its origin.<\/p>\n
So far, around 40 buyers in Belize and Honduras, who handle the purchases for around 4,000 fishers, have traded paper for touchscreens. Testing is also underway in Myanmar and Palau, and over the next year the team plans to bring the app to nearly a dozen countries, including Indonesia, the Philippines, and Mexico.<\/p>\n
With backing from the Honduran and Belizean governments, and other nonprofit partners, Rare expects to roll out OurFish to 120 buyers, representing around 10,000 licensed artisanal fishers in the two countries by the end of 2017.<\/p>\n
Rare is also working to get fish buyers in Myanmar to test the app. The nonprofit\u2019s local coordinator, fisheries researcher Thu Yain Tun, has been working with Burmese fisheries agents to teach local fish buyers in the tiny village of Thabauseik, in southern Myanmar, how to use the app. So far, a handful of buyers, representing an estimated 14,000 fishers, have started reporting their catches.<\/p>\n
In just a year and a half, Box says, buyers in Myanmar have logged more than 150,000 landings, accounting for more than 5,000 tonnes of fish. \u201cAnd that\u2019s starting from a pitch-black view of fisheries in Myanmar.\u201d<\/p>\n
Multiply that amount of fish by the two to three million fishers in the country, as well as the millions of fishers in the Philippines, Indonesia, and the other countries, and the true scale of the artisanal haul begins to emerge.<\/p>\n
Tun says getting buy-in from the Burmese fishers has been slow and difficult. Myanmar\u2019s southern peninsula comprises more than 800 islands, each of which has its own distinct fishing grounds and communities. Tun recounts story after story about fish stocks disappearing or shrinking; fishers are keenly aware there is a problem. Some Burmese fishers and buyers, however, are concerned that the data could be used to increase taxes, Box says.<\/p>\n
But the training is giving the fishers a new perspective, Tun says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they come back from fishing, they\u2019re talking more about conservation, about how to protect their habitats, about how the size of the fish they keep matters. In the villages, they talk about fisheries management.\u201d<\/p>\n
Philip Dearden, a researcher at the University of Victoria in British Columbia who has spent the past three decades studying fisheries conservation in Southeast Asia, says Rare\u2019s app is a positive step, but its long-term success hinges on targeting the right communities first.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are certainly communities in Myanmar where there is strong social capital and a keen awareness of need for fish conservation,\u201d Dearden wrote in an email. But lack of enforcement of protected areas and aggressive fishing tactics used by some\u2014including dynamiting and reef compressor fishing\u2014will remain a challenge, he adds.<\/p>\n
But if the app catches on, there\u2019s a better chance that real-time data on hard-to-reach fisheries actually makes it out of the buyers\u2019 stations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s now momentum around the problem, and the need to solve it,\u201d Box says. \u201cThis is a tool for communities to measure what is affecting their fisheries.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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