Diego, who is over one hundred years old, will return to his island of origin almost 8 decades after being extracted. During the last years it has become a symbol of the conservation of Galapagos.
After the sinking of the barge, which had 600 gallons of diesel stored, actions were taken to reduce the environmental risk in this protected area of PNG. Courtesy
The team also collected about fifty blood samples from those turtles found for the first time, which were also microchipped for identification.The purpose is to carry out genetic analysis to determine the species to which they belong, considering that Wolf volcano inhabits a large population of hybrid individuals, including species considered extinct, due to the fact that in past centuries pirates and whalers released turtles collected in this site. other islands.
The update of the Red Book of Birds of Ecuador indicates that of the 1508 species evaluated, 366 are in some category of extinction risk or there is not enough data to determine their status. Gustavo Jiménez, a scientist at the Charles Darwin Foundation and a collaborator with the Red List of Birds, affirms that the birds of Continental Ecuador and Galapagos were analyzed separately, due to the conservation characteristics of the archipelago. They were also evaluated, he indicates, even subspecies of Galapagos that are categorized as endemic.
The devices will emit a signal when these sharks pass through the areas where the receivers are installed, a network that extends throughout the Eastern Pacific from the United States to Chile, including other protected areas such as Cocos Island, in Costa Rica, Malpelo, in Colombia and Coiba, in Panama.
“The figures presented are relevant in the context of internal and external interests to expand the Galapagos Marine Reserve (RMG) from 40 to 80 nautical miles, in the process of reforms to the Law of Special Regime for the Conservation and Sustainable Development of the Galápagos province that is processed in the National Assembly. It is evident that the reduction of the fishing zones within the EEZ of Ecuador will affect the operation of the tuna fleet, which sustains the third item of the non-oil economy of Ecuador.“
“In a geospatial analysis of Ecuador’s catches in 2018, it was determined that the volume of catches that could be compromised by an eventual expansion of the reserve from 40 to 80 miles is equivalent to 41 thousand tons or its equivalent to 60% of the catches. of tuna from Ecuador in the EEZ corresponding to the island territory, considering that important fishing grounds towards the west and southwest of the archipelago and its reserve would be compromised. In terms of competitiveness, the reduction of fishing areas would particularly affect the productivity of vessels whose fishing trips average 30 days for reasons of autonomy (equivalent to around 46% of the national fleet, with a fishing capacity of less than 400 tons) and therefore the supply of raw materials with origin to enter the European Union market free of tariffs.”
“School activities will be carried out through the use of virtual media that will serve to review previous learning, refresh knowledge and prepare for the contents of the new school term.”
The National Assembly approved a resolution urging the national Emergency Operations Committee to immediately coordination humanitarian flights from Quito and Guayaquil to the Galapagos Islands to repatriate the stranded permanent residents.
HK customs officials, including Danny Cheung Kwok-yin (center), standing in front of the 26 tons of shark fins seized in Hong Kong in early May 2020. Image by HK Customs.
Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno has sent a letter to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, asking the latter to find joint solutions on the temporary sanction that Beijing imposed on three Ecuadorian shrimp farms, prohibiting exports to the country. “We support our shrimp exporters, which have safety and biosecurity protocols recognized by the Chinese government. I sent a letter to President Xi Jinping to find joint solutions, normalize the situation and maintain our international prestige in that market,” Lenín announced on Twitter.
The Latin American leader has reason to be concerned. On 10 July the General Directorate of Chinese Customs announced the suspension of three Ecuadorian shrimp companies – Industrial Pesquera Santa Priscila, Empacreci, and Empacadora Del Pacifico – from exporting to the country. According to reports from Chinese health authorities, samples taken from one of the internal walls of a container transporting Ecuadorian shrimp tested positive for COVID-19, as well as on the outer surface of five boxes from these companies.
With the label # SOSGalápagos, hundreds of activists and environmental organizations demand, through social networks, that the Government of Ecuador do everything possible to remove the fleet of 260 Chinese fishing boats that is in front of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the Ecuador and the Galapagos Marine Reserve (RMG) fishing.
He conformado con el Canciller @lubegach y con la participación de @SevillaRoque, @y_kakabadse y más especialistas, un equipo público – privado responsable de diseñar la estrategia de protección de Galápagos y el respeto de sus recursos marítimos.
Two Latin American fishery conservation groups have teamed up to fight illegal fishing of squid in the international waters of the southwest Atlantic and the Pacific in a move that could have consequences for the large Chinese fleet in the region. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between CALAMASUR [the Committee for the Sustainable Management of the Jumbo Flying Squid in the South Pacific], which includes industry stakeholders from Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru, and OPRAS, the Organization for the Protection of Resources in the Southwest Atlantic.
The agreement “aims to provide a suitable framework and an explicit form to the cooperation between both organizations to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in all maritime areas…” according to a joint statement from the organizations party to the MoU. “In particular, this cooperation strives to eradicate illegal fishing through the sustainable management of resources beyond the jurisdictional boundaries of coastal states … Due to their migratory condition, these resources along with other species of the ecosystem, are subject to irregular and predatory exploitation by foreign long-distance fishing fleets.”
This extension could be carried out since Ecuador signed the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Convemar), in 2012, until ten years later, but eight years have passed and it has not been carried out either in the government of Rafael Correa or in the government of Lenín Moreno.
Yesterday afternoon, Defense Minister Oswaldo Jarrín and Foreign Minister Luis Gallegos affirmed that the Government is making progress in this process with the oceanographic investigation and results are expected for December.
The fleet was detected using data collected by Global Fishing Watch, an ocean conservation group that employs satellites and other technological solutions to monitor fishing activity.
Peter Hammarstedt, director of campaigns for the international environmental organization Sea Shepherd, through a statement , stated that the ” presence of fishing vessels between the Galapagos Marine Reserve and the sovereign waters of Ecuador is not technically illegal, but violates the spirit of the marine protected area “, as many of the species, including sharks, are migratory and regularly leave the sanctuary for international waters.
China “decided to ban deep-sea fishing west of the Galapagos reserve from September to November this year,” said Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Beijing Foreign Ministry. [. . .] Wang Wenbin claimed that the two countries had “reached an affinity of views”, without providing further details. The Chinese authorities “will continue to require that” flagged fishing vessels “are in strict accordance with laws and regulations,” the spokesman promised.
A fleet of Chinese “ghost ships” were falsely reporting their location within New Zealand waters while they fished off the Galapagos Islands. . .Stuff can reveal that six of the fleet are transmitting false information via their Automatic Identification System transponders, which make them appear to be fishing in New Zealand waters.
Now, New Zealand has been dragged into the international dispute because the vessels are “cloaking” in the waters between the Chatham Islands and a border with the high seas. The watchdog group Skytruth uses satellite imagery to identify and monitor threats to the environment. It launched the Global Fishing Watch website in 2016. Global Fishing Watch and Skytruth analyst Bjorn Bergman said: “No Chinese flagged fishing vessels are currently fishing within New Zealand’s EEZ [exclusive economic zone, which gives jurisdiction over natural resources].“The tracks that are appearing below are in fact from vessels near the Galapagos Islands broadcasting false co-ordinates.” Bergman said five of the six vessels were legitimately fishing for squid with authorisation from South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO), an inter-government body in charge of regulating high seas fishing. The sixth could not be identified.
The ship, with a large storage capacity, was already filmed in 2018 by the National Navy, the report added. On the Twitter account of that institution, a video was posted on June 6, 2018 with the hashtag #NoAlaPescaIlegal and in which this ship Yong Xiang 9 is observed. The next day, a press bulletin was also posted informing the detection of a fleet of 60 Chinese ships approaching the Galapagos Islands Exclusive Economic Zone (ZEEI). The Navy ordered a surveillance operation and assured that “it remains alert to enforce the sovereignty of Ecuador.”
Several hundred ships are located 390 nautical miles from the exclusive economic zone of the Andean country, after passing through Ecuadorian and Peruvian coasts. The risk to species and the costs to the region of uncontrolled fishing
Although it has already been proven that the Mar Tropical de Grau reserve has extraordinary biodiversity, the area has not managed to be protected due to the fact that oil fields operate in it.Experts maintain that although the declaration of the Dorsal de Nasca reserve is important and necessary, it does not replace the proposal to protect the Tropical Sea of Grau.
During the United Nations Biodiversity Summit that was held last September, the Peruvian president, Martín Vizcarra, announced that the Nasca Dorsal National Reserve will be created before the end of 2020. In this way, Peru will create its own first purely marine protected natural area and will go from having 0.47% of its sea protected, the lowest percentage of all the countries of Latin America, to protecting almost 8% of its territorial sea. This is an outstanding debt of Peru, considering that this year is the deadline for the countries that signed the Strategic Plan for Biological Diversity, which includes the Aichi Goals, to protect at least 10% of their maritime territory.
Fishery Improvement Project in Ecuador “has resulted in marked improvements in the stock status of six small pelagic species since it was established, according to an update provided by the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP), which helped to create the FIP two years ago.
The Amendments Commission approved, this November 30, 2020, the report for the first debate on the constitutional amendment initiative that proposes the popular election of a government for the province of Galapagos, which will be chaired by the Regional Government Council. The amendment was proposed by Assemblyman Washington Paredes.
It is an initiative of the Governing Council for the Special Regime of Galapagos, the United Nations Development Program in Latin America (UNDP) and the San Francisco de Quito University. The first of its three phases is already underway. It consists of giving financial support to about 90 people who are local guides of the Galapagos National Park. It is expected that this stage will be extended until next January, classified as urgent, and in which the Galapagos Conservation Trust collaborates.
