There was a stretch of years, 2016 to 2019, give or take, when we lived in Bangkok and regularly made our way to Koh Samet, where the squid boats came out every evening and peppered the horizon green. The lights pull the squid up, and the nets do the rest. By the time we moved out of Thailand, it was well reported that these nighttime hauls had been thinning for a while. Not just the squid, but the by-catch too, the mixed small fish that don’t reach the menu and end up instead in fishmeal, which feeds the shrimp ponds, which feed an export industry, which mostly feeds countries that don’t include Thailand. A kilo of those small fish once cost almost nothing at the dawn market and in Thai coastal homes they used to be lunch. Now they were feed for somewhere else’s shrimp.

This isn’t an essay about Thailand. Not yet. It’s an essay about a map.

This spring the United Nations World Food Programme unveiled the latest iteration of HungerMap LIVE, a digital platform that has been quietly remaking how we see hunger. The map covers dozens countries. It pulls in food security indicators from the WFP’s own real-time call-in surveys with actual humans on actual phones, every day, and layers them over weather and rainfall, vegetation and conflict, market prices and currency moves. Where the data thins out, it uses machine-learning “nowcasts” to estimate what’s happening right now in places too remote, too dangerous, or too expensive to survey daily. You can open it on your laptop. It updates while you watch. “Without data, the fight against hunger is fought in the dark,” Cindy McCain, the WFP’s Executive Director, said when the new version launched. It is the kind of line you write for a launch, but it couldn’t be more true.  

The map is the public face of work led by Dr. Kyriacos Koupparis, who runs the WFP’s Hunger Monitoring Unit and, before that, ran Frontier Innovations at the WFP Innovation Accelerator. The lineage matters; we’ll come back to it.

The story Koupparis tells about how the platform got here is, refreshingly, not about machine learning. “The piece that made everything else possible was actually the simplest: picking up the phone,” he wrote when I asked about the arc. WFP’s first large-scale mobile phone surveys [what became the mVAM program] proved you could reach food-insecure households in real time, without waiting months for a field mission, and that dataset became the backbone of everything that came later. “The machine learning is only as good as what it learned from,” he added, “and what it learned from was years of patient, unglamorous phone interviewing in places most people couldn’t find on a map.” The jump from those CATI pilots to a platform covering dozens countries was, in his telling, a data infrastructure story rather than a technology one. “We just eventually got smart enough to let the AI do something useful with it.”

What’s worth noticing about the map is how it thinks. It refuses to pretend hunger is its own subject. On any country, you can pull up a hunger layer and then drop on top of it a drought, a conflict, an inflation curve, a falling currency, and watch them describe the same shape. The map is a solid argument that food insecurity is never just food.

Which brings us to the ocean.

About 3.2 billion people on this planet get a meaningful share of their animal protein from the sea. In coastal Pacific nations and parts of West Africa and Southeast Asia, that share runs past half. Strip those fisheries out and you don’t have a conservation problem, you have a hunger problem. This is not a controversial claim, the FAO has been making it for years, but it lives mostly in the fisheries literature and rarely on the kind of map a finance minister or a donor opens at breakfast.

Here is the thing the HungerMap quietly proves. Every variable it overlays is also a variable in the life of a fishery. The drought it tracks across the Horn of Africa is the same drought collapsing the freshwater inflows that feed Lake Turkana’s tilapia. The cyclones it counts in the Bay of Bengal are the same ones flattening shrimp ponds in coastal Bangladesh and Mozambique. The conflict layer in Yemen is also a fisheries layer with the small dhows that don’t go out, the cold chains that don’t run, the markets that don’t open. Marine heatwaves shift fish stocks poleward at, by some estimates, seventy kilometers a decade; the households that lose those stocks show up in the food security data a season or two later. The map doesn’t have a fish layer. It almost doesn’t need one. The fish are already in there, sideways. 

All of that layering depends, in places where the surveys can’t reach, on machine learning. Koupparis is unsentimental about what it actually does. “What the nowcasting does, simply put, is learn the relationship between observable signals — rainfall, prices, conflict events, vegetation cover — and food security outcomes measured through our surveys,” he said. “Then it applies that learned relationship to places and moments where we don’t have a survey. It fills the silence.” The limits are the more useful part of the explanation. “What it cannot do is see a shock that has no historical precedent. A novel conflict dynamic, a crop disease we’ve never modelled, a political collapse that rewrites the rules overnight — the model doesn’t know what it doesn’t know.” What he keeps coming back to is simpler: “The nowcast tells you where to look, urgently. It doesn’t replace the person who actually looks.”

Two decades ago I worked on marine rapid assessments in Madagascar and New Caledonia, under Dr. Sheila McKenna at Conservation International. The premise of that work was to get into a place fast, count what’s there, name what’s changing, hand the answer to people who can use it. It turns out to be the same instinct driving the HungerMap. The expedition has just become an algorithm. The boat has become a dashboard. The instinct is older than either: see fast, act early, don’t wait for the obituary. It is also, for what it’s worth, the only instinct in conservation that has ever really worked.

“We just eventually got smart enough to let the AI do something useful with it.” — Kyriacos Koupparis, WFP Hunger Monitoring Unit

So, this is my small case for the map, made from the ocean side of the classroom. We are not, in marine work, going to get our own version of HungerMap any time soon. The data isn’t built, the political will isn’t either, and the money is somewhere else. What we can do is read this one. A platform that watches climate hazards, conflict, prices, and nutrition in the same frame is a platform that already, whether anyone planned it that way, watches fisheries- because everything that breaks a fishery is on it.

The same Innovation Accelerator that incubated the HungerMap also incubated, ten years ago, a smaller and much less complicated tool. ShareTheMeal is an app. You tap. Eighty cents goes to feed a child for a day. It started in Berlin in 2014 as someone’s sabbatical project and since then, nearly two million users have channeled donations into more than two hundred and seventy million meals. It is the least dramatic piece of software the United Nations has ever produced, and on a per-dollar basis, possibly the most useful. The map and the app are not the same kind of object. They are however the same kind of bet, that visibility and small action, repeated, compound. If this essay has done its job, you’ll see why I’m closing on it.

Asked why he does the work, Koupparis wrote: “I do this work because hunger is the most solvable crisis on earth, and we keep failing to solve it — not for lack of food, but for lack of attention arriving in time.”

Back on the coast of Koh Samet where we started: the boats still go out. Smaller fish, fewer fish, same lights. Whether a household in that province eats well next year depends on weather a continent away, on a war someone hasn’t started yet, on a currency that may or may not slip, and most of which will be visible, in something like real time, on a map that doesn’t quite know it is also a map of the sea.

By Giacomo Abrusci, SEVENSEAS Media

Tenerife sits in the eastern Atlantic like a crossroads. Positioned roughly 300 kilometres off the northwest coast of Africa, the island intersects the paths of the Canary Current, warm subtropical surface waters, and the deep cold upwellings of the Atlantic basin. The result is one of the most ecologically productive marine environments in the northern hemisphere, a place where bluefin tuna from the Mediterranean share waters with tropical reef species and migratory whales from the polar ocean. What lives in these waters, and how those populations are changing, tells us something important about the health of the broader Atlantic system.

The Anatomy of an Exceptional Marine Environment

The waters around Tenerife support approximately 400 species of fish, a number that reflects the unusual convergence of marine provinces that the island straddles. [1] Its seafloor topography is dramatic: the island drops away steeply from the coast, reaching oceanic depths within just a few kilometres of shore. This proximity of shallow coastal habitat to very deep water creates conditions that support both reef-associated species and the large pelagic predators of the open ocean, sometimes within sight of the same beach.

In the deeper offshore waters, the Canary Islands are internationally recognised as one of the finest big game fishing destinations in the world, and for good reason. Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) pass through in their thousands between December and April, migrating northward toward Mediterranean spawning grounds. These are not small fish. Individuals regularly exceed 250 kilograms, and the largest bluefin recorded in these waters approach 450 kilograms. [2] Their spring passage coincides with dense schools of Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus) and smaller baitfish that concentrate near the island, drawing the giants in from the open Atlantic.

Blue marlin (Makaira nigricans) and white marlin (Kajikia albida) are present from spring through autumn, the two billfish species that define Tenerife’s reputation among dedicated sport anglers. Spearfish (Tetrapturus belone) inhabit the deeper offshore trenches. Yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares), bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus), wahoo (Acanthocybium solandri), and mahi-mahi (Coryphaena hippurus) complete a pelagic assemblage that few locations outside the tropics can match. [2]

Closer to shore, the volcanic reef structures support a different community. Atlantic amberjack (Seriola dumerili), barracuda (Sphyraena viridensis), grouper (Epinephelus spp.), and European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) inhabit the rocky substrates, alongside numerous wrasse species, bream, and moray eels. The deeper sandy bottoms, where slow-jigging techniques are most effective, hold species less visible to tourists but central to local gastronomy: red porgy (Pagrus pagrus), sargo (Diplodus sargus), and various sparids that have been fished by Canarian communities for centuries. [3]

Reading the Signals: What Is Changing

The richness of this marine environment is not static, and the signals coming from the water are mixed. On one hand, the resident cetacean populations tell a story of relative stability. Whale Watch Tenerife, which has logged cetacean sightings systematically since 2018, recorded 17 different species in both 2018 and 2023, with short-finned pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus) and bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) present on nearly every survey day. [4] In 2025, orca sightings and encounters with fin whales were notable additions to the year’s record. [4] The continued presence of these apex predators is generally a positive indicator of ecosystem function.

On the other hand, the EU-funded OCEAN CITIZEN restoration project documented concerning trends at the base of the food web when it began its work on the island in 2024. Fish populations associated with rocky reef habitats have declined significantly compared to historical baselines. Seagrass meadows (Cymodocea nodosa), which serve as nurseries for juvenile fish and feeding grounds for sea turtles, have retreated across multiple coastal areas due to sedimentation, pollution, and rising water temperatures. Rocky reefs have been degraded by a combination of physical disturbance and the effects of ocean acidification. [5] These are not peripheral problems. Reef habitats and seagrass meadows are foundational to the productivity that ultimately supports the entire marine food web, from the smallest reef fish to the bluefin tuna and the pilot whales that hunt above them.

The Atlantic regulatory framework governing commercial fishing has also evolved. EU fisheries ministers, meeting in December 2025, set 2026 catch limits with 81 percent of total allowable catches in the northeast Atlantic at maximum sustainable yield levels — an improvement on previous years, though the failure to agree a mackerel quota for 2026 due to disputes with non-EU countries was a notable setback. [6] For sport and recreational fishing around Tenerife, a growing culture of catch and release has taken hold among charter operators, particularly for bluefin tuna, billfish, and other large pelagic species. Most reputable charters now apply mandatory release for bluefin tuna, reflecting both changing regulation and a shift in the values of visiting anglers. [3]

What the Fish Are Actually Telling Us

Marine ecosystems are exceptionally good at communicating ecological stress, if we know how to listen. The presence of 28 cetacean species, including year-round resident pilot whales, tells us that the deep-water food web west of Tenerife remains productive. The decline of reef fish populations and seagrass cover tells us that the shallower coastal zone is under sustained pressure from human activity. The continued migration of bluefin tuna past the island tells us that large-scale Atlantic management is beginning to take effect after decades of overfishing. The appearance of orcas and large baleen whales in 2025 tells us that the waters retain the biological richness to attract ocean wanderers from across the hemisphere.

Tenerife’s marine environment is neither pristine nor beyond recovery. It occupies a contested middle ground where genuinely exceptional natural heritage coexists with the pressures of one of Europe’s busiest tourist destinations. Paying attention to what lives here, in all its scientific specificity, is the first step toward deciding what kind of relationship the island will have with its sea.

Sources

1. Wikipedia: Tenerife — fauna and marine ecology
2. FishingBooker: Tenerife Fishing — The Complete Guide for 2026, fishingbooker.com, January 2026
3. FishingBooker: Canary Islands Fishing — The Complete Guide for 2026, fishingbooker.com
4. Whale Watch Tenerife: Tenerife Whale Watching Season — cetacean sighting data 2023-2025, whalewatchtenerife.org
5. OceanCitizen EU: Reclaiming Tenerife’s Ocean, oceancitizen.eu, September 2024
6. European Commission Oceans and Fisheries: Fisheries ministers agree fishing opportunities for 2026, December 2025, oceans-and-fisheries.ec.europa.eu

The shipping industry has spent years debating how to cut emissions without overhauling entire fleets or waiting for next-generation fuels that remain decades from commercial viability. A white paper released March 2, 2026, by the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (IMarEST) in collaboration with Montreal-based AI company Whale Seeker and True North Marine suggests the answer may already be hiding inside every vessel’s bridge controls: the throttle.

The paper, titled Navigating with Nature: How Smarter Ship Routing Delivers Emissions Cuts and Biodiversity Gains, models a transatlantic route from Montréal, Canada, to Le Havre, France, and integrates ecological sensitivity layers, habitat vulnerability indices, and speed optimization algorithms into the voyage planning process. The results, based on a single route simulation, are striking: modest speed adjustments along the transit could avoid approximately 198 tonnes of CO₂, cut underwater radiated noise exposure by more than 50%, and reduce the risk of a fatal whale strike by up to 86%. The optimized route also yielded fuel savings of 61.7 metric tonnes per crossing.

Those numbers deserve context. A single transatlantic voyage producing nearly 200 fewer tonnes of carbon dioxide is not a rounding error. Multiplied across the thousands of commercial transits that cross the North Atlantic each year, the cumulative reduction potential is enormous, and it requires no new vessel construction, no experimental fuels, and no regulatory overhaul. It requires information and willingness.

The white paper builds on a growing body of research showing that the relationship between vessel speed and whale mortality is not linear; it is exponential. Studies published in Scientific Reports and cited by NOAA Fisheries have consistently demonstrated that the probability of a fatal collision increases dramatically above 10 knots. For the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, which numbers roughly 380 individuals and is the subject of an ongoing Unusual Mortality Event declared in 2017, vessel strikes remain one of the two leading causes of death alongside fishing gear entanglement. NOAA data shows that 42 right whales have died and 40 have been seriously injured since 2017, with the vast majority of those casualties traced to human interaction.

What the IMarEST paper adds to this picture is an economic case. The conventional framing positions whale protection and commercial efficiency as competing interests: slow your ship to save whales, and you lose time and money. The Navigating with Nature model flips that assumption. By integrating real-time ecological data into route planning, the optimized voyage actually saves fuel. The speed adjustments are not uniform reductions across the entire crossing; they are strategic, applied in areas of high ecological sensitivity where whale density, calving grounds, or migratory corridors overlap with the shipping lane. In lower-risk stretches, the vessel can maintain or even increase speed to compensate, keeping overall transit time within commercially acceptable margins.

“What this case study shows is that smarter speed choices could cut costs and emissions now, while also reducing underwater noise and pressure on ocean biodiversity,” said Emily Charry Tissier, CEO and co-founder of Whale Seeker. Charry Tissier, a biologist with two decades of experience in coastal and Arctic ecosystems, founded the company in 2018 to use AI and aerial detection for marine mammal monitoring. Whale Seeker’s technology has since been deployed with Transport Canada to detect right whales in real time in the St. Lawrence corridor.

The underwater noise dimension is worth pausing on. Chronic noise pollution from shipping is one of the least visible but most pervasive threats to marine mammals. Whales and dolphins rely on sound for communication, navigation, and foraging. Elevated background noise from vessel traffic can mask their vocalizations, disrupt feeding behavior, increase stress hormone levels, and in extreme cases cause physical injury. The International Maritime Organization has recognized underwater noise as a significant environmental concern, but regulatory action remains voluntary and unevenly implemented. A 50% reduction in noise exposure through route and speed optimization, as the white paper models, would represent a meaningful improvement for cetacean populations along one of the world’s busiest shipping corridors.

Alasdair Wishart, IMarEST’s technical and policy director, framed the paper in regulatory terms. “This white paper illustrates how the landscape could look for vessel owners and operators should there be further legislation to protect marine mammals,” he said. The subtext is clear: the shipping industry can either adopt these practices voluntarily and capture the fuel savings, or wait for governments to mandate them and lose the first-mover advantage.

The paper was endorsed by the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development and produced through IMarEST’s Marine Mammal Special Interest Group, a technical body composed of experts from academia, industry, policy, and government. Strategic framing was supported by Fürstenberg Maritime Advisory.

It is worth noting what the paper does not claim. This is a case study based on a single simulated route, not a fleet-wide operational trial. Real-world implementation would face challenges including schedule pressures, port congestion, contractual obligations, and variable weather. The authors position the work as a starting point for integrating biodiversity intelligence into routing decisions, not a finished policy prescription.

Still, the fundamental insight is hard to argue with. In an industry under intense pressure to decarbonize, the notion that protecting marine life and reducing fuel costs can be pursued simultaneously, rather than traded against each other, is a compelling proposition. The ocean’s largest animals and the industry’s bottom line, it turns out, may have more aligned interests than decades of regulatory debate have assumed.

Source: IMarEST, Whale Seeker, True North Marine | Published March 2, 2026
White paper: Navigating with Nature: How Smarter Ship Routing Delivers Emissions Cuts and Biodiversity Gains | Available at imarest.org

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