It would appear that life in the times of Galapagos Islands, Ecuador is not everything that used to be. Over 200 years ago, famed evolutionary theorist, Charles Darwin, straddled across the islands and their rich, teaming, colorful, biodiversity. We are talking about rare, special of animals and plants that are and will only ever be found here, in this very special location. There are plants and animals located in the Ocean and on the land.
The Galapagos Islands, themselves are chain of volcanic islands produced of 1000km of the Coastline of Ecuador.
Things got so bad, as in there were so many Chinese fishing vessels of the coast of islands and the living environment of special schools of fish, the Ecudorian Republic had to call in the United States navy to send in a vessel to the support the protection of the reserve of the Galapagos Islands. In fact it was known that more than 300 Chinese fish vessels had gone to South America to fish, waiting for the schools of fish to migrate south of the towards the sea waters of Peru and Chile.
They were so prepared in fact that the the fleet of fishing ships came with an oil tanker so that they could be supplied fuel and live on the ocean for months, like a tiny, mobile city ready to strike nets at a moment’s notice. Many ships were reported to have the capacity to process 1000 tons of fish. Also, there were even ships there to store caught production, so the fishers could go back out and get more fish.
By some estimates, China has a fishing fleet of 17,000 ships that go of to “distant waters” and cause conflicts over fishing rights and over fishing Africa, Japan, Agentina. And now, due to lack of tourism and funds that industry generates to supply security to Galapagos Islands as well as quarantine, stay-in-place mandates, there is no traffic to keep an eye on foreign entities and much less security patrolling.
Tourism has accounted for a model income, where 90% of the economy relies dollars created and spent in that industry. What much more can be done in private, protected, reserve? The environment itself has become a victim again, because the lack of tourism has also cause a spread in litter and pollution in sea, some of which has Chinese characters.
The reality on the scene though is that, is that China asserts it has a Zero Tolerance, policy in regards to the acceptance of these kinds of illegal fishing acts. Mid-July, the Chinese Embassy of Quito, Ecuador released a statement saying “China respects Ecuadors measures to protect the the environment and preserve marine resources,” however, it would appear that tangible actions and intentions of the Chinese prove contrary to the public statements that they assert to the world over.
Given these facts it would appear that the Chinese government is at least implicitly in collusion with the fishing community and provides a market to sell its conflict-fished, fish. Therefore, it logically comes to mind that the I international community has a right to do say and do something to remedy the unfair situation. This is an ongoing issue reported of in the news for many years. That will not only be more exacerbated by the fact that as time moves forward all the fishing communities continue to be threatened by collapse due to overfishing.