CLS has been chosen by ICCAT to execute a bluefin
monitoring program for the Eastern Atlantic Ocean
and the Mediterranean sea.
 

CLS, a subsidiary of CNES (the French Space Agency), IFREMER (the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea) and several French financial institutions, is a worldwide operator of location systems, data collection and ocean observation. CLS, specialised in sustainable management of marine resources, has been selected by ICCAT in order to install a fishing monitoring center by satellite. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) is an inter-governmental fishery organization responsible for the conservation of tunas and tuna-like species in the Atlantic Ocean and its adjacent seas.

ICCAT adopted the recommendations 07-08 concerning data exchange format and protocol in relation to the vessel monitoring system (VMS) for the bluefin tuna fishery in the ICCAT convention Area.

Thus, ICCAT set up a system of bluefin fishing vessel tracking concerning vessels measuring more than 24 meters. This system has been raised in the context of the execution of the recommendation 06-05 establishing a mult - annual recovery plan for bluefin tuna in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea.

The ICCAT has chosen CLS to provide with a bluefin tuna fishing monitoring center in Madrid (Spain), the organisation’s head office. This center includes a complete fishing management system (THEMIS) and the corresponding data processing infrastructure. CLS will also train ICCAT staff on the use of THEMIS Software.

The fishing monitoring center will receive all messages collected by individual monitoring centers of the European Community, China, Algeria, Croatia, Island, Japan, Korea, Libya, Morocco, Norway, Turkey, Syria, Tunisia and Taipei. These data (vessel position, vessel name, etc.) are transmitted thanks to the beacons installed on the vessels fishing bluefin tuna.

CLS already equips 12,000 fishing vessels of all size all over the world (1,500 vessels in Indonesia, 900 in Peru, 500 in Japan, etc.). CLS is the only satellite operator in the world able to operate all the components of the fishing monitoring system including positioning beacons. The French company specifies and certifies Argos transmitters. CLS has been the exclusive Argos system operator since 1978 without any interruption. CLS has already developed and installed numerous fishing monitoring centres in France, Peru, Seychelles, Madagascar, Russia, Mauritania, Chile and more recently in Comoros.