Carrier Vessel Portal

The Carrier Vessel Portal was a comprehensive solution developed in 2020 by Global Fishing Watch in collaboration with The Pew Charitable Trusts. By monitoring carrier vessels and their transshipment activities, the portal provided real-time insights into where these vessels were, what they were doing and whether their activities were properly authorized.

Transshipment is a vital part of the global fishing industry, but it often takes place far out at sea, making it challenging for authorities to determine whether the catch being transferred is both legal and verifiable. To improve the understanding and management of transshipment, the portal was developed to help policymakers and fisheries managers better comprehend the activities of carrier vessels that take on catch from commercial fishing vessels and deliver it to ports worldwide for processing.

• The tool’s foundation was built on transparency, using automatic identification system (AIS) and vessel registry data to ensure regulatory compliance.
• The portal aggregated data from various AIS vessel tracking systems to monitor fishing and vessel tracking activities globally.

As the first-of-its-kind comprehensive transshipment monitoring tool, the Carrier Vessel Portal utilized vessel transparency to help inform management and policy efforts across the fishing sector. The key features of the portal were integrated into our main platform in October 2025, and can now be accessed through our map.