Chinese boats fish between the islands and the Ecuadorian coast, endangering local marine life. The Chinese embassy has expressed its respect for the environment, but an expert blames China for continually violating the sovereignty of coastal nations. Argentina stopped the same fleet in the South Atlantic. One challenge is Chinese fisheries subsidies. A researcher calls for a concerted effort to save the oceans.
Buenos Aires (AsiaNews) – A giant fleet of Chinese fishing boats threatens one of the maximum herbal ecosystems in the Pacific Ocean in search of giant squid, sharks and other species, with tons of debris.
All of this is taking a position in a loophole that makes a foreign agreement with marine fisheries increasingly urgent.
Ecuador’s president Lenin Moreno said the presence of some 260 Chinese ships between the Galapagos Islands and the Ecuadorian coast is a “danger.”
As a result, the government in the South American country has deployed coastal guards and other naval ensembles during the following week so that none of China’s ships enter Ecuador’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which stretches 360 km from the coast.
Following the government’s resolution in Quito, the Chinese Embassy issued an expressive respect and assistance to Ecuador’s movements to protect the surroundings and marine life.
“All Chinese fishing vessels operate legally in the upper seas beyond the Galapagos EEZ, and pose no risk to anyone,” it reads, and emphasizes that the legal rights of Chinese fishing vessels should also be guaranteed.
To this end, “China still calls its corporations to fish in the higher seas in accordance with domestic and foreign law, and applies a ‘zero tolerance’ policy towards fishing vessels that fish illegally.
However, many in Latin America do not do so in Chinese claims. “Chinese ships are constantly violating the sovereignty of [coastal] states. They only give up when they encounter Navy patrols. But as soon as the controls are loosened, they enter illegally,” said Milko Schvarzman, an Argentine marine conservation specialist working with the Argentina-based Environmental Policy Fence (Circle of Environmental Policies).
“The last on this subject goes back to April,” he said, “when the Argentine naval prefecture and the Argentine army caught two Chinese ships and a Portuguese illegally fishing in the Argentine EEZ.”
According to his research, Schvarzman is confident that the Chinese fishing fleet now south of the Galapagos is the same one that caught in the South Atlantic, near the waters controlled by Argentina, between December and May, the time to fish the well-known Argentine. . short-finned squid.
“From June to November, [China’s fishing fleet] travels to the Pacific to capture squid and giant species.”
For environmentalists, squid are at the center of the marine ecosystem; they are the main food for other species such as hake, dolphins, sperm whales, sea lions, penguins and others that exist without this food.
“We are on high alert, patrolling [in the waters] injuries like the one that happened in 2017,” Ecuadorian Defense Minister Oswaldo Jarron said in statements to the press.
Three years ago, a Chinese shipment captured the Galapagos Marine Reserve, a United Nations World Heritage site. Approximately three hundred tons of fish were discovered in the shipping cellars.
Maximiliano Bello, an adviser to Mission Blue, an organization committed to sea cover, issues that Chinese ships obtain state subsidies, a factor that has recently caught the eye at the World Trade Organization.
“We are looking for ways to end fishing subsidies that harm the oceans. China deserves to join in this effort because; After all, the ocean is a source of life for the whole planet and for millions of people.”
It is also vital that states finale an agreement, within the framework of the United Nations, on biodiversity outside national borders. “If we don’t do anything together, we probably can’t solve this problem,” Bello said.
Using a metaphor, Professor Marco Salinas, who teaches at the Ecuadorian Institute of Higher National Studies in Quito and the Ecuadorian Academy of Naval Warfare, sets the same goal: “All [countries] are on the same ship and we assign the same risks.” “
“What can be greater than joining forces through foreign law and regional organizations to prevent such disruption?” Salinas said, referring to the disorders caused by the lack of fishing mechanisms.
“We can’t eliminate a resource like ‘sea proteins,'” he said. We have to fish, however, it has to be a sustainable fishery that complies with regulations and without fishing period. Children »»
Chinese boats fish between the islands and the Ecuadorian coast, endangering local marine life. The Chinese embassy has expressed its respect for the environment, but an expert blames China for continually violating the sovereignty of coastal nations. Argentina stopped the same fleet in the South Atlantic. One challenge is Chinese fisheries subsidies. A researcher calls for a concerted effort to save the oceans.