Reference · built on requestCommons signalAviation & marine

Global Fishing Watch API

Vessel identity, apparent fishing, encounters, loitering, port visits, AIS gaps, and SAR detections from Global Fishing Watch's v3 API.

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About

Global Fishing Watch, founded by Oceana, SkyTruth, and Google, combines AIS tracking with vessel monitoring system data that governments share and with satellite radar imagery. Its v3 API serves vessel identity matched against over 40 public registries, events for apparent fishing, encounters, loitering, port visits, and AIS off periods, gridded apparent fishing effort through 4Wings, and vessel insights for IUU fishing due diligence. Access is by token under a CC BY-NC 4.0 noncommercial licence.

Through Fibric, an operator checks a vessel's events and insights and proposes a hold, a question to the supplier, or a clearance for your approval, with the event IDs and dates attached.

This is a reference listing. It documents what Fibric would read from Global Fishing Watch API and what it could propose, based on the publisher's published interfaces. Fibric builds it under a managed deployment when you request it; selecting it here installs nothing.

Inputs

  • Vessel identity from /v3/vessels/search with query or where against datasets such as public-global-vessel-identity:latest, with optional OWNERSHIP and AUTHORIZATIONS
  • Events from /v3/events by dataset: public-global-fishing-events, public-global-encounters-events, public-global-loitering-events, public-global-port-visits-events, and public-global-gaps-events
  • Event filters vesselTypes, flags in ISO3, vessels, vesselGroups, and types ENCOUNTER, FISHING, LOITERING, GAP_START, GAP, and PORT_VISIT
  • Apparent fishing effort and SAR vessel detection reports from /v3/4wings/report by region or GeoJSON polygon, as JSON or CSV, grouped by vessel or flag
  • Vessel insights: apparent fishing in no-take MPAs, fishing without known RFMO authorization, AIS coverage, AIS off events, and presence on an RFMO IUU list
  • Context layers with SAR fixed infrastructure as MVT tiles and EEZ, MPA, and RFMO region references, plus bulk downloads as CSV or JSON

Proposed actions

Read-only. This feed informs operators; it changes nothing.

Proposed actions are target capabilities. Every action runs propose-first and needs a validated deployment and the appropriate permissions.

What you can build

  • Screen a supplier's vessels before a lot is received

    For each vessel on a supplier's declaration, the operator pulls identity, authorizations, and insights and proposes a quarantine on the lot or a question to the supplier for your approval, with the vessel IDs attached.

    With Lot Quarantine, Contractor Credentials

  • Keep due-diligence evidence on file

    The operator records new encounter, loitering, and AIS off events for the vessels you follow and files them against the account, with dataset name, version, and access date as the citation format asks.

    With Compliance Evidence, Audit Trail

  • Check port visits against a landing declaration

    When a landing is declared, the operator looks up port visit events for the vessel and dates and proposes acceptance or a variance query, leaving the event IDs on the receipt.

    With Receipt Variance, Dock Schedule

Requirements

  • A Global Fishing Watch account registered on behalf of an organization that supports sustainable use of ocean resources, from a valid organizational email
  • Agreement to the Terms of Use: noncommercial use under CC BY-NC 4.0 and attribution such as Powered by Global Fishing Watch linked to globalfishingwatch.org
  • A token kept private; at most five active tokens per user, with rate limits shared across them
  • Pacing under 50,000 requests per day and 1,500,000 per month, tracked through the x-ratelimit response headers
Authentication
A personal API access token from the Global Fishing Watch token page, sent as a Bearer token in the Authorization header on every request. Tokens are issued instantly and do not expire.

Limits

  • Noncommercial use only; Global Fishing Watch may revoke access if it judges an application to be for commercial advantage or monetary compensation
  • Exceeding the daily limit blocks all of a user's tokens for 24 hours and the monthly limit for 30 days, with a 429 response
  • 4wings/report runs one report per user at a time and can return a 524 after 100 seconds; the last-report endpoint recovers it
  • All events are apparent, estimated from AIS by model; an encounter means interpolated positions within 500 metres for at least two hours

Access and pricing

Reference listing. Public feed access is separate from Fibric integration. If you request this feed, your quote covers the build, usage, and support.

Request Global Fishing Watch API ↗

Questions and answers

Can I use the API in a commercial product?
The Terms of Use state the services are available for noncommercial use only under the CC BY-NC 4.0 licence. Applications intended for commercial advantage or monetary compensation are not permitted, and Global Fishing Watch reserves the right to revoke usage rights at any time.
What are the request limits?
Global Fishing Watch asks users not to exceed 50,000 requests per day and 1,500,000 per month. Limits are enforced per user across all tokens. Usage checks run every 30 minutes, and the x-ratelimit headers report limit, remaining, current usage, and reset periods.
How are encounters detected?
An encounter is recorded when two vessels' estimated positions suggest they were within 500 metres of each other for at least two hours. Positions are interpolated onto a 10-minute grid from reported course and speed, so each event carries a degree of uncertainty.
Ask about Global Fishing Watch API

Ask about the capabilities and requirements in this listing.

For project-specific requirements, contact Fibric.

This Commons signal listing is developed, published, and supported by Fibric. It reads public data published by Global Fishing Watch, Inc. (gateway.api.globalfishingwatch.org). Upstream agencies and projects are the property of their respective owners, who are not affiliated with Fibric and do not sponsor or endorse this listing. Trademark policy