The Fishing Was This Big

You've used Google Earth, I assume. In using Google Earth, people have stumbled across some pretty odd things, things that had previously gone unnoticed. And people use it to monitor various situations around the world. You dump raw satellite photos of the whole entire planet on people, you're gonna see some things.

But you knew that. So let's lead into the story, which is Google partnering up with two environmental groups, Oceana and Skytruth, to initiate Global Fishing Watch. The one thing about Google Earth is that there's usually a lag from one update to the next in a given area. Global Fishing Watch is aiming to monitor commercial fishing spots in almost real time. The idea is to spot where illegal fishing is happening, and then be able to respond to it quickly. It's notoriously difficult to tell how much exactly the oceans are fixed out, but we know enough to be certain they're not doing so hot, and because a lot of people don't pay too much attention to the ocean beyond 'that empty space on the map between all the land parts', a lot of illegal fishing goes unchecked, thus exacerbating the problem. This is the problem they're trying to fix.

I'm unfortunately skeptical that it'll get even close to fixed, but any positive impact, you know?