June 26: A closing ceremony was held on June 26 at the Coast Guard Training School in Le Chaland to mark the successful completion of the SeaVision Operator and SeaVision Analyst courses, offering two weeks of advanced maritime security training for the National Coast Guard personnel.
The event took place in the presence of several stakeholders, such as U.S. Embassy Chargé d’Affaires Craig Halbmaier, the Commissioner of Police Rampersad Sooroojebally, Commandant of the National Coast Guard Captain C.G. Binoop, and senior officers of the Mauritius Police Force.
The U.S. Navy’s Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific Technical Assistance Field Team and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Volpe Center provided the training to more than four dozen members hailing from the Mauritius Coast Guard and government officials.
Participants received hands-on instruction in the use of SeaVision, a maritime domain awareness platform that integrates satellite imagery, radar, vessel tracking information, and other data sources into a single real-time operational picture. Embassy Chargé d’Affaires Craig Halbmaier congratulated the graduates and stressed the importance of maritime security cooperation between the United States and Mauritius.
“Mauritius is responsible for protecting one of the world’s largest Exclusive Economic Zones,” Chargé d’Affaires Halbmaier said. “No country, no matter how large, can patrol an ocean of that scale with ships alone. True security begins with visibility. It begins with Maritime Domain Awareness.”
During the training, participants learned how to use SeaVision to monitor maritime activity, identify suspicious behavior, detect vessels operating without proper identification, and strengthen efforts to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, trafficking, and other illicit activities at sea.
Skills that better protect maritime resources vital to the shared SeaVision are an unclassified, internet-based platform developed through a partnership between the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Volpe Center and the U.S. Navy.
The system enables participating countries to share maritime information and collaborate more effectively with regional partners, strengthening collective maritime security across the Indian Ocean.
The SeaVision training is the latest example of the U.S. commitment to the shared security priorities and the development of Mauritius’s maritime capabilities that permit an expanding role in ensuring maritime security in the Western Indian Ocean. The United States and Mauritius work closely together through a wide range of security cooperation initiatives, including the annual Cutlass Express exercises, maritime law enforcement training, counterterrorism capacity-building programs, and information-sharing efforts.
The island also recently joined the Combined Maritime Forces as its 47th member and signed a State Partnership Program agreement with the New Mexico National Guard, marking two significant steps forward in bilateral security cooperation.
