All isn’t gloom and doom for the world’s oceans, thanks to a growing number of organizations around the world which has used innovation to help protect the marine environment.
Unsustainable human activities have brought many environmental issues to the world’s oceans such as plastic pollution, overfishing, ocean acidification, illegal fishing, and climate change, among many others. However, while problems are mounting, a host of organizations around the world are exerting great efforts to solve them.
SafetyNet Technologies, a sustainable organization based in the United Kingdom which designs and builds devices to promote selective fishing and improve commercial fishing practices, recently identified itself and listed 29 other innovative organizations focused on creating solutions that can help save our seas.
For instance, plastic pollution has become the most pervasive problem in the oceans today, reaching places as remote as even the Arctic Circle. However, organizations such as The Great Bubble Barrier create solutions that would allow the fish and ships to pass, but would trap plastic from flowing through rivers.
There is also The Global Ghost Gear Initiative which is a multi-stakeholder alliance which drives solutions to lost and abandoned fishing gears.
Meanwhile, a range of organizations are employing smart technologies for a more accurate and sustainable fishing management. One of the most common problems with modern fishing is bycatch, where fish that are not supposed to be harvested are taken by the net.
The industry has been stepping up to solve this issue and some of the organizations working on this is Smartfish H2020, an industry-based collaborative research which aims to develop, test and scale smart fishing technologies to collect fishing data.
Another company called FishTek Marine creates ways to reduce bycatch using new technologies, while SmartCatch is a technology firm which makes smart cameras that enable fishing crews to see what they have caught before they bring their catch aboard, and enable them to avoid and release the catch. Meanwhile, EcoCast is an organization which uses data to help fishers and their managers reduce bycatching protected and rare aquatic species.
More importantly, some organizations are relying on ocean data collection to effectively fight climate change and promote seabed restoration. SafetyNet Technologies has named some of the organizations which help collect high quality information for better ocean management such as Bering Data Collective, which uses fishing vessels as data collectors, and Sofar, a company which collects and share data through a network of floating drifter buoys.
Other companies and organizations which are doing their part to help enhance marine protection also focus on better aquaculture practices; transparency and fair trade of seafood, including the traceability of the catch; and welfare at sea and addressing illegal fishing.
To know more about these organizations, read the full list here.