Former fisheries observer Jude Piruku loves the expansive feeling of staring out at the limitless blue of the Pacific Ocean.For 10 years, he was stationed aboard commercial fishing vessels, weathering salty air and harsh conditions to capture scientific data, monitor catch and ensure compliance with licensing agreements."You've got a lot of time on your hands to think, and imagine, and look at the endless horizon," Piruku tells SBS News."You get to travel a lot, see different places, meet different people."Regardless of being an observer, once you step on board the vessel, you're a fisherman … because all the risk that is exposed to a fisherman is also exposed to you."In the Pacific, purse seine vessels — which use a large net to trap schools of fish species, such as skipjack and yellowfin tuna — dominate the commercial fishing industry So, without space-based technology, it would be like trying to find a needle in haystack," Wilson tells SBS News."Fishers may fish within an economic exclusion zone, within a country's boundaries, and then we see them migrate out to these high seas pocket areas to transship their catch and that becomes an indicator to us of uneconomic behaviour."They don't sit within an exclusion zone of any particular country and governance in those areas is weaker and that's where the unauthorised, unregulated catch is lost."To be licensed to fish in the Pacific, commercial fishing vessels are required to continuously run a satellite-based tracking transmitter to ensure they can be located."The satellite surveillance then allows us to see who's not transmitting," Wilson explains."What vessels can we see out on the water that are dark effectively