April 30, 2021 — Global Fishing Watch (GFW) has signed an agreement with Brazil to publish its vessel-tracking data.
Brazil is the sixth Latin American nation to sign a data-sharing agreement with GFW, a partnership between Google and the advocacy groups Oceana and SkyTruth, joining Peru, Panama, Chile, Ecuador, and Costa Rica.
March 23, 2021 — The U.S. should consider leading a multilateral coalition with South American nations to push back against China’s illegal fishing and trade practices, a U.S. intelligence agency has recommended in a document obtained by Axios.
Why it matters: China’s illegal fishing industry is the largest in the world. Beijing has made distant-water fishing a geopolitical priority, viewing private Chinese fishing fleets as a way to extend state power far beyond its coasts.
What’s happening: Huge fleets of hundreds of Chinese vessels have had boats fish illegally in the territorial waters of South American countries, including off the Galapagos Islands.
January 5, 2020 — A fleet of more than 300 mostly Chinese-flagged fishing ships that caused consternation among the governments of Ecuador and Peru this summer when it was spotted fishing around their respective exclusive economic zones, has continued to fish in the Pacific Ocean around South America, and affected countries are coordinating actions to stop it.
The fleet was spotted by Ecuadorian maritime officials in mid-July as it arrived outside of the Galápagos Marine Reserve in international waters near Ecuador’s exclusive economic zone. The fleet was subsequently accused of shutting off its GPS trackers to enable it to fish illegally in protected waters without being detected.
November 30, 2020 — The Sustainable Shrimp Partnership (SSP), an Ecuador-based certification system for shrimp aquaculture launched in March 2018, has kicked off a traceability application that aims to provide consumers with key information on their shrimp’s journey from farm to fork.
“The shrimp industry worldwide produces over five million tons of shrimp each year, and we continue to see many examples of food fraud, especially in seafood industry. So how can consumers trust that the products they are buying are safe for them and their families?” Ecuadorean Aquaculture Chamber Executive President José Antonio Camposano said. “Using the most secure and latest technology available for food traceability and committing producers to the highest levels of transparency … consumers acquire the power to make an informed choice and increase their capacity to buy healthy and responsibly farmed shrimp.”
November 5, 2020 — Four South American countries have joined forces in a bid to combat illegal fishing by huge Chinese fleets off their coasts.
Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru have threatened measures “to prevent, discourage and jointly confront” illegal fishing near their exclusive economic zones in the Pacific.
The joint statement made no specific mention of China but environmental groups Greenpeace and Oceana have repeatedly warned of the growing presence of Chinese fishing fleets in the area.
The South American quartet said they would boost “cooperation and real-time exchange of information” to highlight the illegal fishing.
Ecuador in July complained to China over a 300-vessel fleet off Galapagos, saying around half of them had turned off their tracking systems so they could not be located.
November 2, 2020 — China’s economic predation is back, this time in some of the most ecologically sensitive waters in the world—in the Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador, in Peru, and soon, the waters off Chile. In just one month, according to a report by Oceana, a marine conservation group, an armada of nearly 300 vessels spent an eye-popping 73,000 hours fishing off Galápagos. Far from a Chinese voyage of the HMS Beagle, the fleet is a brazen violation of norms around environmental protection and sustainable fishing (and sometimes sovereignty) and an attempt to plunder resources to meet growing Chinese demand. Chinese fishing could potentially wipe out vulnerable local communities that depend on the sea as a source of sustenance and livelihood. In turn, Latin American countries, along with the United States, must increase the menu of options available to monitor and deter this behavior.
It should surprise nobody that China’s distant-water fleet is now ambling about off the Pacific coast of South America. China’s fishing fleets form a nearly ubiquitous presence in the South China Sea and are also frequently found off the west coast of Africa. Visits to South American waters have likewise increased in recent years. The area is rich in fish populations because it benefits from the famous Humboldt Current, which carries nutrient-rich water from Chile all the way to the shores of southern Ecuador. Even as China’s waters suffer from depleted stockpiles, the Chinese public’s growing appetite for seafood has forced the Chinese Communist Party to search for solutions to secure its supply. Today, consumption there represents one-third of the world total. In turn, the country has had to look for fish stocks further afield—with devastating environmental consequences.
October 20, 2020 — In late June, a fleet of about 300 Chinese fishing vessels swarmed around the rich, biodiverse waters of the Galápagos Islands, armed with overhead lights and industrial jigging machines to attract and catch squid. For the next few months, the vessels remained around the edge of the Ecuadoran islands’ exclusive economic zone (EEZ), raising concerns among conservationists that the fleet would overexploit the squid and capture endangered species such as rays and sharks.
Another worry was also hovering: would the vessels enter the EEZ and illegally fish, putting even more pressure on the delicate marine region and violating Ecuador’s sovereignty?
China’s ambassador to Ecuador said the fleet followed international fishing regulations and did not partake in any illegal activity, and Ecuadoran authorities said the fleet did not enter its waters. However, new information released last week by HawkEye 360, a Virginia-based data analytics company, shows that unidentified vessels were indeed present inside the Ecuadoran EEZ at the same time as many Chinese-owned fishing ships were undetectable via their automatic identification system (AIS), a GPS-based system that publicly transmits a vessel’s identify, speed and location.
There’s a strong correlation between these events, but they don’t necessarily confirm that illegal fishing took place, experts say. However, this new layer of information paints a fuller picture of what may have happened at the border of the Galápagos EEZ in the past few months.
September 24, 2020 — In early June, a fleet of around 260 boats from China reached the limits of Ecuador’s exclusive economic zone around the Galápagos Islands to fish for Humboldt squid (Dosidicus gigas). For months, the fleet skirted this area, drawing outrage among Ecuadorans as well as scientists and conservationists around the world.
The fleet remained in international waters and no ship crossed the country’s maritime limits, according to the Ecuadoran authorities, who detected no illegal actions. However, scientists and fishery analysts say the volume of fishing is so high as to potentially overexploit the squid. Moreover, the boats could be capturing species threatened with extinction. Beyond that, vessels within this fleet have a history of illegal fishing, according to Milko Schvartzman, a marine conservation specialist with the Argentine organization Circle of Environmental Policies, who has studied the fleet for years.
Experts say the presence of these ships is not only a problem for Ecuador but for other countries in the region, too. Every year they travel a route that goes from the South Atlantic off Argentina to the South Pacific near the Galápagos, passing through Chile and Peru. According to Schvartzman, at least two boats that have been caught illegally fishing in Argentine waters and were pursued by that country’s navy were fishing south of the Galápagos in August.
October 8, 2019 — NOAA Fisheries has released its 2019 report to the U.S. Congress, identifying the organization’s efforts to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing internationally while also rebuking three countries for lack of sufficient enforcement against IUU.
The biennial report on improving international fisheries management – made to Congress as part of the High Seas Driftnet Fishing Moratorium Protection Act – identified Ecuador, Mexico, and the Republic of Korea has three countries that failed to sufficiently comply with agreed-upon regulations related to IUU. The report also credited Ecuador, Mexico, and the Russian Federation for earlier work to react to IUU allegations made in NOAA’s 2017 report to congress.
September 24, 2019 — In 2017’s report, NOAA identified Mexico, Ecuador and Russia for reported IUU fishing activities but have since taken corrective actions to remedy those activities.
In 2019’s report, Mexico, Ecuador and the Republic of Korea were identified for reported IUU activities.
In the report: