After depleting the seas closer to home, China’s deep-water fishing fleet has shifted its focus elsewhere – and is now putting one of the planet’s most important habitats in danger.
Operating for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, hundreds of ships have gathered near the Galapagos Islands, 600 miles west of Ecuador, where they are resupplied at sea so they can keep on fishing.
Some vessels are as big as football pitches. Crews can make a fortune, with Humboldt squid particularly sought after.
China is the world’s biggest consumer of fish and there are fears its enormous appetite for seafood is putting the region’s wildlife at risk – in particular turtles, whales and seals, which rely on squid as part of their diet.
Marla Valentine from NGO Oceana warned: “Many species that would otherwise be protected within Ecuador’s waters may migrate or drift past that border and then be fair game for fishing.
“With a fleet this size, fishing with this much intensity, many of these prey may be removed before reaching the Galapagos, where they would enter the food web and support the local species.”
The importance of the islands was revealed by Charles Darwin after an expedition there in 1835, leading to his theory of evolution.
In 2001, 22 Chinese ships visited the southeastern Pacific, jumping to 476 last year. It is thought China accounted for about 80% of the fishing in the international waters off Argentina, Ecuador and Peru this year.
But there are fears figures will not represent the true scale after reports of Chinese vessels repeatedly disappearing from tracking systems, which can be turned off intentionally, around the Galapagos.
In 2017, officials from Ecuador, which owns the islands, intercepted one boat with 300 tons of shark fins on board.
In 2020, I spoke to locals who told of their anger after finding a young shark washed up with its dorsal fins hacked off. They said boats, each dangling millions of hooks, target sharks that end up in fin soup in markets across Far East Asia.
Authorities in Ecuador have accused China of acting with impunity – but international action is also needed.
Without it, there may well be no Galapagos wildlife left at all.
