卫星帮忙搬走海产海盗的赃物

Fish on ice in Palau Misa Island, Indonesia. Thanks to satellite data, John Amos of SkyTruth can track fishing activity near the Pacific island nation from his office in West Virginia. Randy Olson/National Geographic/Getty Images hide caption

印度尼西亚的帕劳密萨岛——冰上的鱼。在卫星数据的帮助下，约翰·阿莫斯可以从西弗吉尼亚的办公室里追踪这个太平洋岛国附近的鱼群活动。

Most of the seafood Americans eat comes from abroad. And a lot of that is caught illegally — by vessels that ignore catch limits, or that fish in areas off-limits to fishing.

美国人吃的大部分海产品来自国外，而其中的大部分属于非法捕捞，手法则是根本不顾渔船的承载量的大肆捕捞，或进入不准捕鱼的水域捕鱼。

No one knows how much of it is illegal, because the oceans are too big to patrol. Or at least, they were. Now environmental groups have harnessed satellite technology to watch pirate fishing vessels from space. And they've caught some of them.

因为海洋太大，没法全面巡逻，所以没人知道究竟有多少（鱼）是非法捕捞上来的。不过至少这种情况正在成为过去。现在环境组织利用卫星技术从太空观察海盗捕鱼船，甚至抓住了一些海盗捕鱼船。

Environmental groups, as well as the U.S. government, say pirate fishing endangers fish stocks and undercuts U.S. fishing fleets that follow the consumers care as well. And the people who supply them.

除了环境组织，美国政府也说捕鱼海盗们危及海鱼储备，让遵纪守法的船队的利润下降。但是消费者和卖鱼的商人也很在乎（这个事）。

ProFish is a big seafood distributor in Washington, D.C. It's in a part of town tourists never see — in a compound of brick warehouses. Inside, in a maze of high-ceilinged rooms, workers in waterproof overalls filet fish on cutting tables and hose down cement floors. Giant refrigeration units keep the place numbingly cold.

“爱鱼”是华盛顿特区的一家大型海产品供应商，地处镇上一个旅游者永远不会发现的地方。它的被院墙围起来的砖砌仓库里面是状若迷宫的高屋顶房子，一间接着一间。而穿防水紧身衣裤的工人们则在巨大的案板上切割鱼肉，并用水管冲洗水泥地面。一列列巨大的制冷机让这个地方冷得让人麻木。

John Rorapaugh is the sustainabity director at ProFish. Rorepaugh says sustainable seafood is caught or farmed in a "responsible" way that doesn't threaten fish populations or harm the environment. His fish lie in tubs of crushed ice: steel-colored tuna and glittering striped bass. There's a fish with a yellow stripe like a Nike swoosh.

约翰·洛拉帕是“爱鱼”分管“鱼类信息可持续性”的主任。洛拉帕说捕捞可以提供“不间断信息”的海产品，或是以“负责任的”方式养殖海产品不会威胁鱼群数量或伤害环境。他的鱼躺在碎冰桶里，其中有银灰色的金枪鱼和带闪光条纹的欧洲鲈鱼。这里还有一条鱼身上的淡黄色条纹很像耐克商标上的那个“勾”。

"Mahi mahi," he says, in a tone you might use to describe show horses. "You should see it when it comes out of the water. It is just the most beautiful fish."

他用一种描述最炫参赛马的口气说：“那是青花鱼。当它跃出水面的时候你应该能够看到它。它可以算是最漂亮的鱼。”

Rorapaugh says to assure its pedigree as sustainable, a fish needs a story: its genus and species, who caught it, when and where it was caught. Rorapaugh says fish caught in the U.S. come with that information, but imported seafood usually does not.

洛拉帕说为了确保一条鱼不绝种，（捕捞）这条鱼需要提供如下资料：它的属名和种名、谁捕捞、以及在何时何地捕捞，但是进口海产品往往没有（这些资料）。

"God forbid you ask where it was caught, and most people, by the time it gets to us, they have no idea," he says. I ask if he would like to have that information from importers. "Of course. I would love to see more chain of custody," Rorapaugh says. "And I think that's what the consumer wants. We're seeing that people want to buy fish that have a story, that are sutainable and clearly are legal."

他说：“上帝禁止你询问它是在哪里被捕捞的，而且当这条鱼到达我们这儿的时候，大部分人也不清楚（它是在哪里被捕捞的）。”我问他是否想从进口商那里获得这些信息。洛拉帕说：“当然。我非常想看到更多的监管信息链。而且我认为消费者也想。我们看到消费者们愿意购买有信息资料的鱼，并且这些资料没有间断，是合法的。”

He notes that those people are the high end of the market, not the ones who buy frozen fish sticks at the supermarket. But he says more people are asking about the kind of fish they're getting and how it was caught.

他注意到那些人位于市场的高端，根本不是在超市买冰冻鱼块的那些人。不过，他也说越来越多的人开始询问他们要买的鱼的种类，以及它是如何被捉住的。

And what most people don't know is that a lot of it, billions of dollars' worth of seafood every year, is caught illegally — caught in protected areas, or from overfished populations, for example. Tracking the illegal trade is a nightmare. A fish could be caught by a Korean vessel, shipped to a Chinese packing plant and sold to a distributor in Canada before it gets to the U.S.

当然，大部分买鱼的人所不知道的是，每年他们消费的鱼的绝大部分——共计亿万美元的海产品——是非法捕捞的。举例来说吧，（它们）要么是在受到保护的海域（被捕捞），要么是从已然遭到过度捕捞的鱼群中（捕捞）。

SkyTruth followed the ship Shin Jyi Chyuu 33 during one week last month. The group says the ship's irregular track and variations in speed, as seen on a map, are indicative of fishing.

在上个月“天空真相”用了一周的时间跟随“Shin Jyi Chyuu 33"号渔船。该组织说该船在地图上显示的无规律的踪迹和速度变动表明它正在捕鱼。

But now there's a new way to monitor the trade, at its very start, on the high seas: By watching it from space.

但是现在有了一种新的方法可以从一开始就监控公海上的捕捞，那就是从太空观察他们。

John Amos is one of the pioneers. He runs a small organization in West Virginia called SkyTruth. He started out collecting satellite images of oil spills in the ocean. In 2011, he learned about the automatic identification system, or AIS, which ships use to prevent collisions at sea.

约翰·阿莫斯就是创始者之一。他在西弗吉尼亚有一家小公司，名字是“天空真相”。他开始是收集海上漏油的卫星图片。在2011年，他学习了自动识别系统（AIS）的相关知识。船只使用这套系统防止在海上发生碰撞。

"Those AIS communication broadcasts can be picked up by orbiting satellites," Amos explains. Large ships carry electronic devices that constantly broadcast the ship's location and heading. This signal includes the boat's name, and where it's from.

阿莫斯解释说：“那些AIS通讯广播可以通过在轨卫星截获。”大型海船都携带有持续广播该船位置和走向的电子设备，而播送的广播信号中又包括了该船的名称和起始港。

Working with Google, Amos developed software that uses AIS signals to track up to 150,000 vessels all over the world.

阿莫斯与“谷歌”一起开发了一套软件，该软件可以用AIS信号跟踪遍及世界的15万艘船。

And he's also collaborating with the Pew Charitable Trusts, a nonprofit that's trying to curb illegal fishing with a program called Eyes on the Seas.

他也和一家非盈利组织——皮尤慈善受托基金——合作。这个组织试图用一个被称作“海洋上的眼睛”的计划来控制非法捕鱼。

Amos learned how to recognize the kind of movement displayed on a map of the ocean that indicates a boat is fishing. "It's kind of a slow back and forth movement that would indicate they've put fishing gear, like long lines with baited hooks, into the water," he says.

阿莫斯学习如何识别显示在海图上的那种表明渔船正在捕鱼的活动。他说：“一种缓慢的前后移动表明他们已经往水里放置了打捞装置，比如长绳子，上面装着带有食饵的钩子。”

Now, clearly Amos can't watch all the world's oceans. Instead, he's been watching areas pinpointed by experts at Pew, such as new or proposed marine reserves, and places frequented by pirate fishing vessels.

显然阿莫斯现在还不能观察所有的大海。他只观察皮尤慈善受托基金的专家们精确定位的区域，诸如新的或是被推荐的海洋保护区，以及被海盗捕鱼船频繁光顾的区域。

Last month, Amos was tracking boats near Palau, an island nation in the Pacific Ocean, near Indonesia. He spotted one following that tell-tale fishing pattern. The AIS data revealed it was a Taiwanese boat. He contacted officials in Palau, who said the boat was fishing illegally. "The authorities in Palau decided to intercept it, and they sent their patrol boat out," Amos recalls. He monitored both boats from his office in West Virginia, using AIS data.

上个月阿莫斯追踪了帕劳附近的船只。这座太平洋岛国位于印度尼西亚附近。根据辨别移动方式，他发现一艘正在捕鱼的船。 AIS数据显示那是一艘台湾渔船。他与帕劳官方联系，帕劳官方告诉他该船正在非法捕捞。阿莫斯回忆道：“帕劳当局决定拦截它，并派出了巡逻艇。”他在西弗吉尼亚的办公室里使用AIS数据监控双方的船。

"(It was) kind of a nail-biting time," he remembers, "where we're sitting in the office past midnight, monitoring our computer screen so that we could provide updated location information to the authorities in Palau that they could relay to the patrol boat."

他回忆说：“当时真紧张。我们过半夜了还坐在办公室里，盯着电脑屏幕，以便我们能够向帕劳当局提供最新的位置信息，然后他们再将信息传递给巡逻艇。”

Authorities boarded the vessel, and according to the Palau government, it was crammed with illegally caught tuna and shark fins.

帕劳当局强行登上该船，后来根据帕劳政府的说法，该船塞满了非法捕捞的金枪鱼和鲨鱼鱼鳍。

So AIS tracking works. But it's limited. It only transmits data on a ship's location and identity. And a ship captain can switch it off. So the Pew Trusts is now acquiring actual images of ships, taken from satellite cameras and radar onboard satellites.

所以AIS追踪成功了。但是它也有自身的限制。它只能传递船只位置和身份的数据，而船长可以关掉这些信息的发送。所以皮尤信托基金现在要取得船只的实际图像，而这些图像可以通过卫星相机和卫星携带的雷达获得。

Tony Long, who leads Pew's Ending Illegal Fishing campaign and is a former Royal Navy electronic warfare expert, says radar and photos give you much more information. "You can see what type of vessel it is," he says, "and any activity on deck, and indeed, if there is any fishing gear in the water."

托尼·龙负责皮尤信托基金的“结束非法捕鱼”活动，他也是一位前皇家海军电子软件专家。他说雷达和照片给你更多的信息，“你可以看到船只的类型。如果确实有捕鱼装置被放进水里，你可以看到甲板上的一切活动。”

A Palauan law enforcement vessel (left) escorts a Taiwanese longline fishing vessel (center) and a Greenpeace ship (right) at sea in the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Pacific island nation in 2011. The 'Taiwanese ship was suspected of illegal shark finning in the area.

2011年，在太平洋岛国帕劳的专门经济区内，一艘帕劳强制执法船（左）正护送一艘台湾多钩长线捕鱼船（中）和一艘绿色和平的船（右）。该台湾船只被怀疑在该海域非法捕捞鲨鱼鱼鳍。

One thing he looks for is the transfer of fish from one vessel to another. That's not illegal, but it's often a way to launder illegally caught fish, to mix it with a legal catch, for example. "You can see quite clearly two vessels side by side," he says of the images.

托尼·龙现在寻找的一件事情是把鱼从一条船转移到另一条船。那不违法，但却是把非法所得同合法所得混在一起的常用方法之一。他谈到一些图片时说：“你可以相当清楚地看到两艘船肩并肩航行。”

The satellite system has already caught at least two boats fishing illegally. But it can't catch every pirated fish. And once a fish reaches land, the route to the American dinner table gets, as Beth Lowell puts it, "Opaque, vague, foggy."

卫星系统至少已经抓住两艘船在非法捕鱼。但是它抓不到每一条被非法捕捞的鱼。一旦鱼到达陆地，那么通往美国人饭桌的路径，就像贝斯·劳尔说的：“是不透明的、朦胧的、模糊的。”

Lowell is a fisheries expert at Oceana, another environmental organization trying to curb illegal fishing. Lowell says when it comes to stories, even spinach has a clearer plot line than fish.

劳尔是“奥西阿那”——另一个试图控制非法捕捞的环保组织——的渔业专家。劳尔说谈及背景资料，甚至连菠菜都比鱼更清楚。

"If you look on the back of some bags of spinach, you can put a code in and track it back to the farm it came from," she notes.

她指出：“如果你想重视菠菜的背景资料，你可以往装菠菜的袋子里放一个代码，然后追踪它的出产农场。”

The federal government is now drafting a plan that would encourage governments and international organizations to document every link in the whole seafood chain, something Lowell calls "traceability."

联邦政府目前正在起草一份计划，鼓励政府和国际组织记录整个海产品链的每一个环节，其中有些事项被劳尔称作“具有追朔性”。

For every batch of seafood, she says, authorities would know that "it got picked up at the warehouse, it's on shipment to the next site, it's on a plane, now it's on your doorstep. And that's what we want to be able to do with seafood."

她说对应每一批次的海产品，政府当局都应该知道“它是从仓库里来的，它在去往下一站的运输工具上，它在飞机上，现在它在你的家门口。而那就是我们打算为海产品做的工作。”

The federal government is due to publish its plan for cracking down on illegal fishing this spring. If it works, more of your fish may be coming with a tale attached.

为了采取严厉措施打击今年春天的非法捕鱼，联邦政府会出版这份计划。如果奏效，我们吃的鱼中会有更多的鱼拥有一份不间断的资料链。