Actor Leonardo DiCaprio wants anyone with an internet connection to track commercial fishing vessels around the world in a bid to curb illegal fishing practices.

A new app, known as Global Fishing Watch, was revealed last Thursday during the Our Ocean Conference in Washington D.C.

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Google and Skytruth are involved in the project. Skytruth is a non-profit organization that offers digital mapping. Conservation group Oceana, which is also part of the project, now allow users to scan across a world map with 35,000 major fishing vessels and monitor their movement in real time.

According to the Executive Director of Oceana Canada, Josh Laughren, this app would help to curb illegal fishing in oceans around the globe. He explained that the app can pinpoint fishing behaviors, patterns and vessel routes, and if fishing boats venture into protected waters.

How does the app precisely pinpoint thousands of fishing vessels?  Global Fishing Watch utilizes data that is available to the public via a pre-existing technology used to identify ships known as the Automatic Identification System.

This technology was primarily used to ensure safety of ships in an area by sending a ping over a satellite or land based receiver every five seconds. These satellite pings can now precisely identify the location and identity of a ship.

Today, there are about 200,000 major commercial fishing vessels in our oceans. The developers of the app have identified and mapped common fishing patterns of several vessels.

According to a World Ocean Review report, an estimated 11 to 26 tons of seafood was captured illegally in the high seas in 2013.