— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) July 28, 2020
WATCH: About 260 Chinese fishing boats have been detected in the ocean surrounding the #Galápagos islands off #Ecuador, according to the country’s navy.
The ships, found just outside a protected zone, raise the prospect of damage to the marine ecosystem.
In Previous years they were caught by authorities
On 1 fishing boat there were over 6000 protected sharks killed.
“Ecuador prison for Chinese fishers caught in Galapagos”
“Alarm over discovery of hundreds of Chinese fishing vessels near Galápagos Islands
The fleet, found just outside a protected zone, raises the prospect of damage to the marine ecosystem”
About 260 ships are currently in international waters just outside a 188-mile wide exclusive economic zone around the island, but their presence has already raised the prospect of serious damage to the delicate marine ecosystem, said a former environment minister, Yolanda Kakabadse.
“This fleet’s size and aggressiveness against marine species is a big threat to the balance of species in the Galápagos,” she told the Guardian.
Sevilla said that diplomatic efforts would be made to request the withdrawal of the Chinese fishing fleet.
“Unchecked Chinese fishing just on the edge of the protected zone is ruining Ecuador’s efforts to protect marine life in the Galápagos,” he said.
Ecuador is also trying to establish a corridor of marine reserves between Pacific-facing neighbours Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia which would seal off important areas of marine diversity, Kakabadse said.
Ecuador’s president, Lenín Moreno, described the archipelago as “one of the richest fishing areas and a seedbed of life for the entire planet”, in a message on Twitter over the weekend.
The Ecuadorian navy has been monitoring the fishing fleet since it was spotted last week, according to the country’s defence minister, Oswaldo Jarrín. “We are on alert, [conducting] surveillance, patrolling to avoid an incident such as what happened in 2017,” he said.
The 2017 incident he referred to was the capture by the Ecuadorean navy within the Galápagos marine reserve of a Chinese vessel. The Fu Yuan Yu Leng 999, part of an even larger fleet than the current one, was found to be carrying 300 tonnes of marine wildlife, mostly sharks.
www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/27/chinese-fishing-vessels-galapagos-islands
In 2016 Argentina sunk a Chinese fishing boat that invaded their territorial waters.
Argentina’s coastguard chased and sank a Chinese vessel that it says was fishing illegally in Argentine waters on Monday.
In a statement, the coastguard said one of its vessels had fired warning shots at the Lu Yan Yuan Yu 010 as it headed for international waters.
The coastguard said it had first tried to raise a response by radio. All 32 crew members were rescued, it said.
China has expressed “serious concern” over the sinking.
China is the world’s largest market for seafood and has the biggest long-distance fishing fleet, currently numbering more than 2,000 vessels, reports say.
In 2012 Argentina captured two Chinese vessels it said had been fishing illegally for squid in its exclusive economic zone. Warning shots were fired.
www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35815444
Philippines backs Vietnam after China sinks fishing boat.
The Philippines has expressed solidarity with Vietnam after Hanoi protested what it says was the ramming and sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat by a Chinese coast guard ship in the disputed South China Sea
China claims virtually the entire South China Sea and has built several islands equipped with military installations in the area, one of world’s busiest shipping lanes. Vietnam has been the most vocal opponent of Beijing’s territorial assertiveness.
The Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs recalled that 22 Filipino fishermen were left floating in the high seas after a Chinese vessel sank their boat at Reed Bank on June 9 last year. They were rescued by a Vietnamese fishing vessel.
abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/philippines-backs-vietnam-china-sinks-fishing-boat-70037606
S. Korean Coast Guard fires machine gun in warning to illegal Chinese fishing boats
A Korean Coast Guard crew fired its onboard machine gun earlier this afternoon… in a warning to a Chinese fishing boat operating illegally in South Korean waters — the first time it has exercised a newly-granted power to use force.
The officers were trying to seize two Chinese fishing boats in the West Sea when they were surrounded and threatened by some 30 other fishing boats.
After firing a warning shot in the air from an M-60 machine gun, the Coast Guard was able to arrest the crews of the two vessels, and are in the process of transferring them to the Incheon coastguard pier.
No fatalities were recorded.
The Korean government last month granted the Coast Guard the power to use weapons including firearms… due to the increasing violence of Chinese poachers found in the West Sea.
Illegal fishing has been a source of diplomatic strain between Seoul and Beijing over the past several years.
Phillipines call China “Environmental Looters”
Video shows Chinese poachers destroying coral reefs to collect giant clam shells.
Discussed how 1 Chinese boat collected 500 Critically Endangered Sea Turtles.
“When Rupert Wingfield-Hayes visited the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, he found Chinese fishermen were deliberately destroying coral reefs. Poachers were revving the engines on their boats sending clouds of black diesel smoke pouring into the air – and under the water, were piles of shattered white coral branches.
As he reports, some of the fishermen were also catching massive giant clams, at least 1m across.”
Philippines: Chinese fishermen detained for ‘killing 234 turtles’
“The eleven Chinese fishermen caught by Philippine authorities for allegedly poaching in disputed waters were held in detention at the provincial prosecutor’s office in Palawan’s city of Puerto Princesa on Friday. The crewmen are accused of poaching sea turtles in the South China Sea, after their boat was seized with more than 350 green sea turtles near the disputed area of the Half Moon Shoal. If charged and found guilty for infringing wildlife laws, the fishermen can face up to 20 years in prison.
Police said that 120 live and 234 dead turtles were found on board. Chinese authorities have since demanded that the fishermen and the boat are released.
China claims the Half Moon Shoal as part of the Spratly Islands, which have long been disputed by China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.”
A female CHINESE citizen was arrested by Miami Beach police and charged with molesting or harassing marine turtles or their eggs.
According to police Yaqun Lu, 41, was seen by officers and bystanders with a wooden stake in her hand “jabbing at the sea turtle nest and stomping all over the nest with her bare feet.”
The nest was in a closed-off, protected area in the 500 block of the beach, ringed by a double perimeter of eight wooden stakes and yellow tape along a double perimeter and a posted “Do Not Disturb” sign as a warning.
Miami Beach police said the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office and the Consulate-general of the People’s Republic of China in Houston was notified of Lu’s arrest. Lu is a Chinese citizen who lists a Hudsonville, Michigan address
www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article231600958.html
“Cocaine of the sea” — the illegal fish trade of the Mexican cartel and Chinese mafia leaves the worlds smallest whale, the Vaquita porpoise, on the edge of extinction.
Sea of Shadows is a documentary about environmental activists, the Mexican Navy, and undercover investigators trying to prevent the extinction of the vaquita, a species of porpoise and the smallest whale in the world, by pulling gillnets, doing research, and fighting back Mexican cartels and Chinese mafia who are destroying ocean habitats in their brutal pursuit to harvest the swim bladder of the totoaba fish, known as the “cocaine of the sea”
phys.org/news/2018-04-mexico-cocaine-sea-species-extinction.html
Race for Mexico’s ‘cocaine of the sea’ pushes two species toward extinction.
by Yemeli Ortega, With Joanna Chiu In Guangzhou, China
Totoaba swim bladders discreetly displayed in this shop in Guangzhou, China sell for up to $20,000.
Half a world away, off the coast of Mexico, poachers battling each other for this “cocaine of the sea” are using drug cartel-like tactics to get it—pushing two species toward extinction and leaving ordinary fishermen fighting to survive.
The lucrative black market for totoaba swim bladders—prized in Chinese traditional medicine for their purported healing and beautifying properties—have turned the Gulf of California into a battleground
The casualties of this war include not only the critically endangered totoaba, but also the world’s smallest porpoise, the vaquita marina—of which just 30 remain, according to scientists—and local fishermen caught in the middle.
Mexican authorities say the vaquita has been virtually wiped out by totoaba fishing, because it gets stuck in the same kind of net.
AC