National Coast Watch Center: A Look at the country’s Maritime Inter-Agency Set-Up
Maritime domain awareness (MDA) is defined by the International Maritime Organization as the effective understanding of anything associated with the maritime domain that could impact the security, safety, economy, or environment. The maritime domain is defined as all areas and things of, on, under, relating to, adjacent to, or bordering on a sea, ocean, or other navigable waterway, including all maritime-related activities, infrastructure, people, cargo, and vessels and other conveyances.
We received the following article by Ely Loyd A. Villarosa, currently the Senior Intelligence Analyst of the Philippines’ National Coast Watch Center: The article is about the Philippines’ National Coast Watch Center, the only government agency that caters inter-agency mechanisms for maritime security operations. The NCWC was funded by the US government through the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
In 2011, then-President Benigno S. Aquino III signed Executive Order No. 57 creating the National Coast Watch System as the central inter-agency mechanism for a coordinated and coherent approach on maritime issues and maritime security operations towards enhancing governance in the Philippines’ maritime domain. One of its organs is the National Coast Watch Center, the implementing and operating arm of the System.
In 2021, we started to put the spotlight on our passionate ship spotters. Each month, we introduce another ship spotter of FleetMon.com. In April, you’ll meet Joana (User name: Joanapen), an inland skipper from Bavaria, Germany.
What is your maritime background?
My name is Joana; I‘m 60 years old and live in a small village in the Dachau district near Munich, Germany. I am an inland skipper by profession, mainly driving as a pilot on the Danube between Straubing and Vilshofen. I shoot vessels once a week. From time to time, I also go to other waters as a replacement (vacation or illness replacement) for about 14 days.
Welcome to the first edition of the FleetMon Maritime Gallery. Each month, you’ll find a special section on our blog featuring the best maritime photos in a certain category. You’ll not only get to view the most popular photos being voted by our community for “Photo of the Week” and “Photo of the Month”. You also have the chance to view special shots and photos which are less popular but in the same way extraordinary.
This month, we’ll start with showcasing a selection of the best tugboat photos in our monthly Maritime Gallery. Enjoy great vessel photography!
Each month, we announce an update on how we extended our terrestrial AIS coverage worldwide. Become an AIS Partner and contribute to Global Maritime Transparency. Please have a look at our latest achievements on the AIS receiving station network.
FleetMon supports students and research partners when it comes to providing AIS data for academic purposes. In 2020, a Ph.D. student from the Department of Engineering Science of the University of Oxford reached out to us to receive certain AIS data for a project on the decarbonization of crucial shipping routes.
Read a guest article provided by Professor René Bañares-Alcántara, Reader at the Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford.
In January 2020, we announced on our blog that we support Steffen Krones, a German film producer, and his project team who reached out to FleetMon seeking a sponsoring partner. They planned to produce a documentary called “Flaschenpost aus Dresden”, covering the question:
Is it possible that trash produces in Germany moves all the way along German rivers ending up in the North Sea or even in the Arctic Ocean to pollute the coast of the Lofoten?
To get answers they built buoys equipped with GPS devices and tracked the buoys’ journey to understand and visualize the influence of human behavior on our world.
“Flaschenpost aus Dresden” is the latest documentary film project of Steffen Krones
2020 has passed quickly and we asked the project team for an update on their documentary project.
“We can’t wait to travel after those GPS drifters and finish the film production.”
In 2021, we started to put the spotlight on our passionate ship spotters. Each month, we introduce another ship spotter or maritime enthusiast of FleetMon.com on the corporate blog. In March, you’ll meet Malcolm Cranfield (User name: Cranfield) from Great Britain.
He became a member of our community in September 2020 and uploaded 55 vessel photos for 33 different ships to FleetMon. Malcolm has an extensive maritime background spanning his entire life.
At the beginning of 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed over two Million lives and continues to spread throughout the world. While the health crisis grew, the virus also infected economies and supply chains. Official statistics in developed countries such as Germany capture well the impact of lockdown measures on retail sales or disruption in global trade on national imports.
These official statistics, however, tend to be published with a time lag of several months and even longer for developing countries in the global South. To provide policymakers with more recent information on economic activity, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel) published the Corona Data Monitor in 2020 using unconventional, but high-frequent data. For instance, economist Vincent Stamer contributes to the data monitor by analyzing daily API data from FleetMon. Comparing historic ship activity in the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to today’s activity measures the impact of the Corona crisis on the key East Asia – Europe trade route. For more information, please visit the Corona Crisis Data Monitor on the website of the IfW Kiel.
Figure 1: Daily Freight Capacity, Red Sea, January 2020 until January 2021, source: IfW Kiel
In a recent study sponsored by the German Federal Foreign Office, a project team of the Kiel Institute replicated the concept of the Data Monitor and applied it to various data sources on developing countries. To measure the impact of the pandemic on countries in the global South, the authors used data on nitrogen gas emissions, light emissions, and flight arrivals, as well as AIS data on container ships provided by FleetMon.
Each month, you get an update on how we extended our terrestrial AIS coverage worldwide. Become an AIS Partner to contribute to global maritime transparency. We announce the latest achievements of our AIS receiving station network.
Global distribution of new terrestrial AIS coverage
New AIS stations and port coverage
Have a look at the new terrestrial AIS stations and port coverage we gained in the last quarter of 2020 until February 2021.
Researchers at ETH Zurich provide new insights on the emission reduction potential of shore-side electricity using AIS data from FleetMon.
Port of Felixstowe and high-traffic vessel lanes using FleetMon Explorer
The urgency for climate action expressed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) demands a rapid market uptake of CO2 reduction measures in all sectors. For international shipping, the European Commission has frequently emphasized the important role of providing shore-side electricity to ships at berth, being a rather simple way of reducing CO2 emissions of ships, but also due to considerable co-benefits: Local air pollution in sea ports is primarily caused by emissions of ships at berth and poses a severe threat for premature mortality on the local residents.
