The system MONICAP1 which was initially developed upon request for the Portuguese Government, is a complete system that includes a Control Centre and special equipments ("blue boxes") to be placed inside fishing vessels. These boxes use the GPS constellation of satellites for vessel positioning and INMARSAT Standard-C for bi-directional communication. At the Control Centre it is possible to establish if an almost continuous tracking of the vessels is desired, to make periodic request for positioning or to be automatically informed if the vessel enters specific areas.

The system has been in use, in Portugal, since 1993 and it is now enforced by law that most fishing vessels with an overall length of 15 meters or larger should use. The Portuguese Government acquired 366 blue boxes, 300 of which are already mounted. The acquirement of more 130 is also granted for this year, and we can foresee a whole of 400 "blue boxes" mounted by the end of 1998 and about 500 "blue boxes" at the end of 1999, making it, to our knowledge, the largest satellite fishing monitoring system in the world.

We are extremely satisfied with the global performance of MONICAP, and believe that it is a well conceived system that can provide all the important information to help national authorities in the mission of manage their resources. Within the European Community we had the opportunity to be exposed to similar systems, and we are convinced that MONICAP out performs all the other presently being used by European Fishing Authorities.

We would be glad to arrange a visit to our Control Centre, in order to demonstrate how the system is currently being used to control and enforce fishing activities in the Portuguese Exclusive Zone as weil as in others such as NAFO (North Atlantic Fishing Organization).

"Monitorização Contínua das Actividades de Pesca"

Lisboa, 17 de Abril de 1998

O INSPECTOR-GERAL DAS PESCAS