SFA’s launches ground-breaking FIMS   |07 August 2023.

Seychelles Nation

New tool to help shape future of Seychelles’ fishing industry

Imagine a tool that transforms Seychelles’ fishing industry, providing detailed insights about marine wealth while promoting sustainability and transparency. That is no longer a mere concept; it is a reality. The Seychelles Fishing Authority (SFA) recently launched the country’s first-ever Fisheries Information Management System (FIMS), marking a significant milestone in its digital transformation journey and re-emphasising its commitment to transparency.

This ground-breaking system will revolutionise the way fishing resources are managed by providing accurate and timely information on fish stocks, fishing effort, catch data, and various associated datasets.

This will empower both fishers and the public with knowledge, while promoting transparency in the industry.

In this article, we will dive deeper into the world of FIMS, exploring its features, benefits, and how it will help shape the future of Seychelles’ fishing industry.

The SFA is a regulatory body that is at the centre of the Seychelles’ fisheries sector development. It was established to develop the fishing industry to its fullest potential and driven by its long-standing motto ‘Responsible Fishing for Sustainability’, it has implemented policies and strategies that are key to the fisheries sector’s success in Seychelles, becoming one of the countries’ economic pillars.

The SFA has seven different technical departments, generating large volumes of data ranging from licenses, fisheries economic and financial performance, research data, catch data, to monitoring and compliance records and many other datasets. However, until recently, the data generated was largely fragmented with limited inter-departmental accessibility. This would often create inefficiencies, leading to challenges with fisheries management outcomes. Therefore, the conception and successful implementation of a FIMS, would help SFA to comprehensively compile and appropriately present the over 1.7 million fisheries-related data records from all of its technical departments.

What is the Fisheries Information Management System (FIMS)?

FIMS is a digital tool that brings the many fisheries datasets that SFA maintains together and accessible in a single place. It can be accessed using a web browser on a computer or mobile device by going to the address: www.sfa.sc/fims

SFA’s FIMS was developed through funding under the Third South West Indian Ocean Fisheries Governance and Shared Growth Project (SWIOFish3) and in partnership with SFA and the Ministry of Fisheries and the Blue Economy (MOFBE). An international tender was called and Traseable Solutions, a technology company from Fiji with expertise in fisheries information systems, was selected to work with SFA to develop the FIMS. The project commenced in September 2022 and took approximately nine (9) months to complete. It was launched on July 3 by the Designated Minister, who is also the Minister for Fisheries and the Blue Economy, Jean-François Ferrari.

The design of SFA’s FIMS is quite unique as it has a large focus on making fisheries information and datasets available to the general public. It is also designed to streamline the exchange of fisheries data within SFA and among its external stakeholders. 

Most FIMS are designed to meet operational requirements of collecting and managing fisheries data derived from daily fisheries-related activities. However, the SFA FIMS is positioned as a strategic tool that is intended to collate all of Seychelles’ fisheries data and present it in a single platform. Another unique feature of the SFA FIMS is that it contains all of SFA’s datasets from aquaculture, artisanal fisheries, semi-industrial and industrial fisheries, which is unlike most FIMS implementations where the focus is typically on a single fishery.

The FIMS was developed with open-source technologies and a key component of this project has been to upskill SFA IT staff to be able to take on the administration and management of the FIMS, even with the ability to extend the system’s capabilities in the future. This is a key aspect of ensuring that investment in the FIMS is sustainable in the long term.

Key features of the FIMS

There are two separate views to the FIMS – a public view and a secure view, both accessible through any electronic device with the ability to connect and display information from the internet. The public view can be accessed by the general public while the secure view can only be accessed by authorised users of the FIMS which include SFA staff and key external stakeholders like the MOFBE, Seychelles National Bureau of Statistics, Central Bank of Seychelles, Ports Authority, and others.

The public view of the FIMS is centred around key questions that people might be interested to know about their fisheries resources. These questions are presented as dashboards and include:

●           Who is licensed to fish?

●           What is the economic contribution of fisheries?

●           How much fish has been caught?

●           What are our fisheries exports and imports?

●           How are we managing our fisheries? 

These dashboards present fisheries data in the form of visual charts and graphs, numeric metrics, and data tables that a viewer can interact with. Charts are interactive and datasets can be downloaded for use.

The secure view of the FIMS provides access to more fisheries data than is presented in the public view. Similar to the public view, it presents data in the form of visualisations, metrics and data tables.

Benefits of the FIMS

Prior to the FIMS, access to Seychelles’ fisheries data was through several sources. SFA publishes several documents including the Fisheries Statistical Report and SFA’s Annual report. FiTI’s annual transparency assessment reports also provide a wealth of information on Seychelles fisheries. Additionally, SFA receives many requests for fisheries-related data from different agencies which can be time-consuming to compile.

The FIMS helps solve the problem of fisheries data access by making it all available on a single platform. As the FIMS grows the number of datasets it contains, it is expected that data requests to SFA will decrease.

“It is very user-friendly so anyone who might not be tech savvy would be able to navigate the portal and access different fisheries data they might need,” says Elisa Socrate, assistant manager of the SFA Fisheries Resource Management Department.

Another challenge with fisheries-related data is the ability of the general public to access and understand the data that is being presented in statistical reports and other documents. The FIMS helps to solve this challenge by presenting the data in formats that can be easily understood, e.g. simple and self-explanatory visualisations and metrics like pie charts, bar graphs and tables.

Within SFA and among fisheries stakeholders, the FIMS will have a transformative impact as it will make it easier for departments to access information they may need for their work. It will also provide a renewed emphasis on ensuring that data collected as part of operational activities are accurate and regularly updated, as it will need to be uploaded into the FIMS and made accessible in a timely manner.

An investment in the future

The successful launch of the SFA FIMS earlier last month marks the completion of what is likely the first phase of digital transformation in Seychelles fisheries. FIMS is an investment in the future of fisheries management for the Seychelles and this initial investment through SWIOFish3 has provided a platform for SFA to build upon.

In the future, the SFA FIMS provides exciting potential and could be extended to incorporate the electronic capture and processing of fisheries data from all of SFA’s operational activities, which would streamline the entry of data into the FIMS. It could be integrated with its own mobile application for use in the field where SFA staff are able to collect fisheries data, even when offline. Continual investment in the FIMS and improving SFA’s technical ability to manage it will ensure that Seychelles’ fisheries management policies are always informed by reliable, accurate, and timely fisheries data.

Contributed