# Addressing Gaps in Small-Scale Fisheries: A Low-Cost Tracking System +
## 4 Discussion  
Even though small-scale fisheries account for around 75-85 percent of the EU fishing vessels [47; 48] and negatively impact marine ecosystems [49], a lack of spatially explicit and quantitative estimates has been a recurrent bottleneck for the application of effective sustainable management [50]. Although some European SSF vessels could meet the costs and technological requirements of AIS or VMS, they do not adopt these technologies as it is not regulated in EU waters. Indeed, in EU fisheries, vessels below 10 m are not required to compile logbooks, and vessels below 12 m are not required to use VMS. Consequently, spatial patterns of small-scale fisheries have been poorly investigated for estimating the pressures and impacts on the ecosystem at high spatial resolution, while coarse spatial indicators of fishing effort have been proposed [51; 52]. However, for most SSF vessels, AIS and VMS remain not applicable, due to the low technological capacity and/or implementation costs [53]. The scenario becomes even worse in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, where SSF makes up the overwhelming majority of the fishing fleet, contributes significantly to food security, and provides valuable employment opportunities, particularly in vulnerable coastal communities [54]. To fill this gap, we deployed a simple tracking equipment on board of a small-scale fishing vessel and coupled this with a serverless and cost-effective architecture to collect data. Currently, hardware costs average nearly EUR 100/150 per unit (and could be reduced by a large volume of purchases), while the service cost is low but related to the number of installed devices (AWS Services Pricing [55]). The actual proposed system works onboard of boats with a storage battery (typically +12 or +24v DC), while the next-generation prototype will be designed for vessels without electrical systems, providing a dedicated battery and solar panel to recharge it. Although new electronic technologies for monitoring small-scale fisheries have been adopted in individual and experimental case studies [21], to our best knowledge, no other similar attempts have been documented in Italy nor in the Mediterranean Sea. The objective of the proposed system was to minimize costs and license conditions--such those associated with many commercial iVMS and other fleet-tracking systems--and effort by using open-source software and off-the-shelf technologies. This would promote future, large mass adoption, retaining the flexibility to extend system features and improving data collection and analysis. Critical to the choice--and to the future adoption of the system--is also the need to ensure security mechanisms of data transmission and to maintain data confidentiality and encryption. It is indeed important not to underestimate that the majority of fishes understandably prefer to maintain their own data confidentially. Figure 5: Fishing activity (minutes) over daytime, excluding steaming and in-port reports (**a**), and speed values by hauler activity (**b**). We focused on commercial and relatively inexpensive devices that are widely used in the road-transport sector. They have excellent technical support and firmware already developed to enable the monitoring of vehicle fleets. The device was fitted directly to the vessel's ignition system, while a speed sensor was attached to the hauler to signal its activation. For vessels with poor or no power, a solar-powered version of the tracking device will be developed, and the already-proven ability to put the tracker into \"hibernation\" when not in use will become key to preserving battery power. It is known that common vessel-tracking technologies such as AIS are not only more expensive and less flexible, but they also may lack coverage [56] and security mechanisms (e.g., terrestrial AIS is an open, non-proprietary, unencrypted, and unprotected radio system that can be picked up by anyone with a receiver).