Ecuador’s Navy announced the start of a campaign to protect the Galápagos Islands from the predatory practices of Chinese illegal fishing vessels that have, for years, endangered their maritime biodiversity.
The announcement comes shortly after the conclusion of Galapex III, a series of multinational naval training exercises designed to fight illegal fishing that the Ecuadorian Navy hosted from June 23 to July 9. The navies of the United States, Canada, South Korea, Italy, Spain, and neighboring nations — such as Colombia and Peru — participated.
“The problem is that the number of foreign fishing vessels reaches a point where they begin to plunder ecosystems,” frigate captain Guillermo Miranda told Reuters. “When they fish, they affect really migratory species, which in many cases are part of the Galápagos marine ecosystem. It’s a pretty serious problem, not just for Ecuador.”
Every year, a fleet of roughly 400 Chinese illegal fishing vessels sail through the waters of the Pacific and South Atlantic Oceans, pillaging local fish stocks through mass depredation, causing significant damage to local ecosystems, and polluting the seas by dumping manmade waste. […]
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