UK-registered charity the International Pole & Line Foundation (IPNLF) and tech company Zeal Industries have partnered to support the innovation, field-testing and development of new applications of wearable technologies geared towards small-scale fisheries.
The partnership will explore further use cases for Zeal Industries’ Uptime technology, a safety solution for artisanal fishers capable of enhancing safety at sea and improving operational efficiency.
The technology brings real-time recording and precise, high-resolution tracking data to fishing vessels. According to IPNLF and Zeal, this rich telemetry data is made available via affordable satellite technology, making it one-tenth of the price of comparable maritime solutions.
Uptime field trials are being prepared among fleets in South Africa, Tanzania and Japan.
“We are thrilled to announce this partnership, which blends diverse expertise across the fisheries and technology sectors,” IPNLF Managing Director Martin Purves said. “Our collaborative development and refinement of their cost-effective wearable technology is set to positively change how we think about and apply technologies in fisheries.”
The partnership recognises that scaling from pilots to ongoing application continues to be the greatest hurdle for most technologies, and that this is especially true for small-scale fishing vessel owners who can struggle to access the financing to purchase, install or maintain the currently available technologies. As a result, global drives to technology-driven fisheries currently tend to marginalise small-scale fisheries from globalised seafood markets.
