The technology is being piloted in the Seychelles later this year

By Umberto Bacchi

LONDON, June 8 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Drones guided by artificial intelligence to catch boats netting fish where they shouldn't were among the winners of a marine protection award on Friday and could soon be deployed to fight illegal fishing, organisers said.

The award-winning project aims to help authorities hunt down illegal fishing boats using drones fitted with cameras that can monitor large swathes of water autonomously.

Illegal fishing and overfishing deplete fish stocks worldwide, causing billions of dollars in losses a year and threatening the livelihoods of rural costal communities, according to the United Nations.

The National Geographic Society awarded the project, co-developed by Morocco-based company ATLAN Space, and two other innovations $150,000 each to implement their plans as it marked World Oceans Day on Friday.

The aircraft can cover a range of up to 700 km (435 miles) and use artificial intelligence (AI) technology to drive them in search of fishing vessels, said ATLAN Space's founder, Badr Idrissi.

"Once (the drone) detects something, it goes there and identifies what it's seeing," Idrissi told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.

Idrissi said the technology, which is to be piloted in the Seychelles later this year, was more effective than traditional sea patrols and allowed coastguards to save money and time.

From satellites tracking trawlers on the high seas to computer algorithms identifying illegal behaviours, new technologies are increasingly coming to the aid of coastguards worldwide.

AI allows the drones to check a boat's identification number, establish whether it is fishing inside a protected area or without permit, verify whether it is known to authorities and count people on board, Idrissi said.

If something appears to be wrong, it can alert authorities.

Other winners were Marine Conservation Cambodia, which uses underwater concrete blocks to impede the use of bottom-dragged nets, and U.S.-based Pelagic Data Systems, which plans to combat illegal fishing in Thailand with tracking technologies.

"The innovations from the three winning teams have the potential to greatly increase sustainable fishing in coastal systems," National Geographic Society's chief scientist Jonathan Baillie said in a statement.

Much of the world's fish stocks are overfished or fully exploited, according the U.N. food agency, and fish consumption rose above 20 kilograms per person in 2016 for the first time.

Global marine catches have declined by 1.2 million tonnes a year since 1996, according to The Sea Around Us, a research initiative involving the University of British Columbia and the University of Western Australia.

(Reporting by Umberto Bacchi @UmbertoBacchi, Editing by Claire Cozens. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org)

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