 Photo: Josh Sorensen/Wikimedia Monitoring of illegal fishing activity in Seychelles' EEZ will soon be conducted by drones. The Seychelles Fishing Authority will be the project coordinator - called FishGuard - which will be part of the Seychelles Air Force and Seychelles Coast Guard routine routines.
The monitoring of large marine areas will be done using a combination of short-range and long-range drone equipped with artificial intelligence. The drones can be remotely controlled or can fly autonomously through software-controlled flight plans by working in conjunction with onboard sensors and GPS. The project will be tested in October by the Seychelles Air Force and Seychelles Coastguard will support the project by providing a ship for drone deployment at sea; the Seychelles Civil Aviation Authority will ensure that the safety requirements are met and the required flight authorizations are obtained. FishGuard is the brainchild of Badr Idrissi and Younes Moumen, co-founders of ATLAN Space, a technology start-up developing unmanned aerial vehicles with artificial intelligence. Drones are programmed to be autonomous and able to make independent decisions based on the data collected. More details can be found at this link: Project Fishguard  A U.N. ruling has extended Seychelles’ Exclusive Economic Zone by 14,840 square kilometres, about 30 times the entire landmass of the archipelago. The area is said to consist of seabed and subsoil that is possibly suitable for resource exploration.
The chief executive of PetroSeychelles, Patrick Joseph, described the extension as “an additional area where we can conduct research for resources under the sea, for example, oil exploration. We don’t know if there is but we have the opportunity now to do the research because the area is now ours.” Vice President Meriton said, “There is now the possibility to work towards getting more data with our international partners and then invite people who are interested to see what can potentially be exploited in the area, of course on a sustainable basis, to ensure that anything we find can be used for the economic and social development of our country,” added Meriton. Seychelles is also in the process of claiming an area around the remote island of Aldabra and together with Mauritius, jointly manages part of the Mascarene Plateau. For more details see the following link: Seychelles News Agency |
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