Photo: X Account of the Navy of Ecuador.
The Ecuadorian Navy has restarted a campaign to protect the seas surrounding the Galapagos Islands from illegal fishing perpetrated by foreign vessels, including Chinese vessels.
This protective effort has intensified with recent training exercises conducted in collaboration with neighboring nations. Six Ecuadorian vessels participated in training exercises along with vessels from the navies of the United States, Peru and Colombia. During these maneuvers, they simulated interception and boarding of illegal fishing vessels.
The training operations in the Galapagos, which lie within a biodiverse marine reserve, began in 2018 following the capture of a vessel in the protected area the previous year.
The vessel, known as Fu Yuan Yu Leng 999 was flying the Chinese flag, and was caught carrying 300 tons of fish.
Annually, large fishing fleets, predominantly Chinese-flagged, sail close to the Galapagos, endangering the marine life of the archipelago, which is a marine reserve rich in biodiversity. The Ecuadorian government has indicated that these vessels turn off their radars to avoid being monitored during their fishing activities.
China maintains that its vessels comply with international regulations and that its squid fishing vessels do not incidentally catch sharks or other protected marine species.
However, the Ecuadorian Navy has recalled in an official statement that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), to which Ecuador has been a signatory since 2012, regulates maritime activities and defines the rights and responsibilities of coastal states.
In this context, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization considers illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing as a significant threat to the balance of fishery resources worldwide, with an estimated annual economic impact between US$ 15.5 and US$ 36.4 billion, representing between 14% and 33% of global fishing.
Since 2018, Ecuador has been organizing the multinational exercise Galapex, whose objective is to conduct maritime protection maneuvers to neutralize IUU fishing and related illegal activities.
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Other related sources:
El Hualcopo: De llevar pesca ilegal a combatir buques depredadores en Galápagos – Big Fish.
