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“Fishing vessel owners and operators exploit African flags to escape effective oversight and to fish unsustainably and illegally both in sovereign African waters,” TMT, a nonprofit research organization in Norway that specializes in maritime crime, concluded in a 2022 report, adding that the companies were creating “a situation where they can harness the resources of a State without any meaningful restrictions or management oversight.”

Toward that goal, a consortium of 14 research institutions led by the Carnegie Institution for Science has amassed $850 million for the GMT, while the California Institute of Technology and the University of California have led an international team of partners that has contributed $2 billion toward building the TMT.

The leaders of both the TMT and the GMT say they welcome the board’s February statement and the new review.

“We don’t know how this is all going to turn out,” says TMT’s chief executive Robert Kirshner.

The TMT’s team faces a special challenge.