Intelligent drones crack down on illegal fishing in African waters https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/intelligent-drones-crack-down-illegal-fishing-african-waters

1. 7/31/2018 Intelligent drones crack down on illegal fishing in African waters | UN Environment
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16 Jul 2018 | Story Ecosystems
Intelligent drones crack down on illegal
fishing in African waters
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Young entrepreneur Badr Idrissi never waited to be told what to do. Instead, he looked
for innovative solutions to problems. He would often take the family TV or video recorder
to pieces. “My parents would always tell me to put it back together!” he says. “But that’s
how I learned to fix things.”
Today, thirty-seven-year-old Idrissi, from Morocco, is CEO and co-founder of ATLAN
Space, a deep technology startup using drones and artificial intelligence to crack down
on illegal fishing and protect natural resources in Africa.
“I had a conversation with a friend, Younes Moumen who is also a Co-Founder of ATLAN
Space, about our terrible track record in Africa on illegal fishing, poaching,
deforestation,” he says. “We dug deeper into the statistics and what we found shocked
us.”

2. 7/31/2018 Intelligent drones crack down on illegal fishing in African waters | UN Environment
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They found, for example, that Mauritania, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea Bissau,
Guinea, and Sierra Leone, lose an estimated US$2.3 billion in total to illegal fishing
annually, as reported by Frontiers in marine science
(https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2017.00050/full).
A former Microsoft Account Executive with a degree in Telecommunications Engineering,
Idrissi and his co-founder worked hard to find a solution. They developed software
technology that arms unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, with artificial intelligence.
“The drones use artificial intelligence to decide where to go. We give them information
about protected marine areas, illegal fishing hotspots, and the weather. We also program
them to distinguish each context,” he explains.
“For example, if a fishing boat is detected, the drone will analyze its behavior based on
whether it is located in a protected marine park, what it is doing, whether there is a fleet,
etc., to decide if its activity is illegal. It will use the context to decide whether or not to
report the situation.”
Other drones can only cover a radius of about 70 kilometers and need a human pilot.
ATLAN Space’s technology increases the operational range of the drones, and allows
them to monitor very large marine areas without any human interaction.
Badr Idrissi, CEO of ATLAN Space, Photo by
Startup Istanbul
Depending on the number of hotspots which need
to be monitored, one drone can cover
10,000 square kilometers . They fly at over 300
meters, making them unreachable by non-military
means.
“If the drone is 95 percent sure that behavior is illegal, it will send the relevant local
authorities information detailing the time of the occurrence, the GPS coordinates, the
location and any other relevant data that will help them decide on the course of action,”
he says.
The novelty of the technology lies in its ability to bypass the need for human intervention
over long distances. The drones can cover a large area and make autonomous
decisions. For example, two drones can communicate and ‘decide’ to split up and track
two different boats.
But Idrissi’s vision is not to replace humans altogether. “Our technology is there to help
people do their jobs more effectively. Illegal activities destroy jobs, for example in the

3. 7/31/2018 Intelligent drones crack down on illegal fishing in African waters | UN Environment
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tourism industry,” he says.
ATLAN Space has won a National Geographic award to fund its “FishGuard pilot”
partnership, which will deploy the drones for the first time, to tackle illegal fishing in the
Republic of Seychelles.
FishGuard is a unique partnership that includes in addition to ATLAN Space, Trygg Mat
Tracking - a Norwegian analytical non-profit and the international organization Grid-
Arendal, to provide technological solutions to combat illegal fishing.
Idrissi estimates that this system costs half of what is already commercially available on
the market, making it a highly cost effective option for tackling illegal activity, especially
among emerging economies.
“The deployment cost of the FishGuard solution depends on many parameters and is
specific to each project. It doesn’t only include the technological element, but also
capacity building for a sustainable ocean resources management strategy,” says Idrissi.
“This is about more than detecting crime: we can build marine protection capacity;
understand trends and patterns to see the bigger picture of what is happening at sea.
We expect this will have a deterrent effect, because people will see that the area is
monitored,” he says.
After deploying its solution in the Seychelles, Idrissi plans to expand the model to tackle
other environmental problems like deforestation and illegal mining in future.
Idrissi believes that while there is much potential for startups like his in Africa,
entrepreneurs and innovators still face challenges. “I do feel that today we focus on
educating young people about how to be an employee. That doesn’t allow people to be
creative - and that is risky.”
UN Environment Regional Information Officer for Africa, Mohamed Atani, notes that
supporting young entrepreneurs in Africa is critical for sustainable development, and for
finding more innovative solutions like FishGuard in future.
“Today more than ever, we need young people like Idrissi, who understand challenges in
Africa, and who find solutions for which there is great demand,” says Atani.
“Entrepreneurs are not people who fail to find a job – they have immense vision for the
future. We must support that.”
Topics

4. 7/31/2018 Intelligent drones crack down on illegal fishing in African waters | UN Environment
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Ecosystems
Oceans & seas
Young champions
Champions of the earth
Coastal and marine ecosystems
Natural resources
Related Sustainable Development Goals
Goal 1
No Poverty
+
Goal 2
Zero Hunger
+
Goal 6
Clean Water
and
Sanitation
+
Goal 7
Affordable
and Clean
Energy
+
Goal 12
Sustainable
Consumption and Production
+
Goal 13

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Climate
Action
+
Goal 14
Life Below
Water
+
Goal 15
Life on Land
+
Goal 17
Partnerships
for the Goals
+
Related Sustainable Development Goals
Goal 1
No Poverty
+

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Goal 2
Zero Hunger
+
Goal 6
Clean Water and Sanitation
+
Goal 7
Affordable and Clean Energy
+

7. 7/31/2018 Intelligent drones crack down on illegal fishing in African waters | UN Environment
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Goal 12
Sustainable Consumption and Production
+
Goal 13
Climate Action
+
Goal 14
Life Below Water
+

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Goal 15
Life on Land
+
Goal 17
Partnerships for the Goals
+

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