Massive Chinese Fleet Jeopardizes Threatened Shark Species around the Galápagos Marine Reserve and Waters off Ecuador: Implications for National and International Fisheries Policy

Citation
Alava JJ, Barragán-Paladines MJ, Denkinger J, et al (2017) Massive Chinese Fleet Jeopardizes Threatened Shark Species around the Galápagos Marine Reserve and Waters off Ecuador: Implications for  National and International Fisheries Policy. International Journal of Fisheries Science and Research 1:1001
Abstract

Editorial
Being a UNESCO-World Heritage Site, the Galápagos harbors the largest global shark biomass in the world’s oceans [1] and a unique marine biodiversity [2]. However, the waters around the Galapagos Islands have regularly been susceptible to fishing assaults by local and foreign industrial fleets, including Colombian, Costa Rican, Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean, which have illegally practiced shark fining, i.e. the wasteful practice of removing of dorsal, pelvic and pectoral fins from sharks [2-4]. In 2001, the Galápagos National Park seized a Costa Rican vessel with > 1000 shark fins, killing at least 200 sharks [3], while an Ecuadorian vessel containing a total of 379 sharks from seven shark species was seized by the Ecuadorian Navy and Galápagos National Park in 2011 [4]. This has now obviously become a persistent, problem within and around the Galápagos Marine Reserve (GMR) [2,3], evoking a classic case of the “Tragedy of the Commons” [5]. The removal of high tropic level fish and marine predators such as groupers, dolphin fish, marlins, tuna and sharks can cause severe trophic cascade effects in the Galápagos marine ecosystem [2] with serious consequences to the socio-economic welfare of Galápagos and Ecuador’s coastal small-scale fishing communities [6]. On the morning of 19 July, 2017, a report alarming the presence of Chinese vessels near to the Galápagos Islands drew attention to the Galapagos National Park and Ecuadorian Navy who immediately deployed a coast guard vessel, from the operation center at San Cristobal Island (Galápagos), to the site where the fleet was observed. Once in the location, approximately 300 vessels under Chinese flag were identified as long liners, as factory ships, as cargo ships and as tanker boats, transporting fuel. Due to the serious legal violation within Ecuadorian waters jurisdiction by the Chinese fleet, the Ecuadorian Navy ordered to deploy a naval aircraft to explore and confirm the illegal activity by producing photographic evidence about the event...