Co-producing improvements in enforcement agencies efficiency to tackle illegal fishing

Illegal fishing can undermine the sustainability of fisheries globally, threatening livelihoods and marine ecosystems. Traditional enforcement strategies struggle to cope with the scale and complexity of illegal fishing due to limited resources, vast geographical areas, and sophisticated evasion techniques employed by fishers. Scientific approaches and technological advancements can offer promising solutions to enhance enforcement effectiveness. Concomitantly, enforcement officers have accumulated expert knowledge and state agencies accumulate vast amounts of data on enforcement and detection. The co-production of approaches and tools that integrate scientific and agencies knowledge can allow to advance in creating tools to analyze vast datasets, identify patterns, and predict potential illegal fishing activities with unprecedented accuracy and efficiency. In addition, co-production is key to creating institutional memory at agencies and improve adaptive management. Knowledge integration allows the strategic allocation of enforcement resources, focusing efforts where they are most needed and likely to have the greatest impact. Here, we exemplify the potential of knowledge co-production through a learning platform that developed a predictive enforcement tool in collaboration with Chile’s fisheries enforcement agency. Integrating historical enforcement data and environmental factors, enables to proactively anticipates illegality risks, aiding preemptive enforcement. Initial use showcases its potential to significantly upgrade enforcement, offering enforcement agencies actionable intelligence for prioritized, effective interventions in Chile and beyond.