News Review: LADS survey to help fight illegal fishing | ADM Dec 06/Jan 07

Adelaide-based Tenix LADS Corporation has started work on a survey of Torres Strait and northern Great Barrier Reef waters to help fight illegal fishing, under the first contract of its kind.

Tenix LADS will use its Laser Airborne Depth Sounder (LADS) MK II Lidar system to collect data for seven new or updated nautical charts of the area.

Authorities will use these charts to patrol currently uncharted waters, which have become hot spots for illegal fishing.

General Manager of Tenix LADS Corporation, Tom Spurling, said the company was proud to play an integral role in protecting coastal waters.

"Our LADS system will help authorities increase surveillance in Australia's northern waters, limiting the number of vessels entering the region illegally," Mr Spurling said.

"Using an aerial surveying system is a cost-effective way of mapping these potentially hazardous and unsurveyed waters."

The contract is part of the Fisheries Protection Survey and Charting Project, created to bolster the presence of enforcement agencies in northern Australian waters.

This is the second contract awarded to Tenix LADS by the Department of Defence in 2006 year.

The company won a tender to supply the Royal Australian Navy with its new LADS system in May.

Tenix LADS Corporation is the world leader in airborne surveying for hydrographic mapping using the LADS technology, developed by DSTO, which uses laser pulses to measure water depth.

Tenix LADS has provided airborne survey services for governments and oil and gas companies around the world and is currently sole provider of this service to the US Government.

The company employs almost 70 people at offices in Adelaide, Biloxi, Missouri, in the USA, and Dubai.

Copyright - Australian Defence Magazine, December 2006/January 2007