Ecuador expands sea life protections round Galapagos

Ecuador created a large new marine reserve Friday north of its Galapagos islands, forming a Pacific hall as much as Costa Rica’s Cocos Island National Park to protect species of migratory fauna, corresponding to sharks.

President Guillermo Lasso, on board a scientific vessel from the Galapagos National Park (PNG) anchored within the bay of Puerto Ayora off Santa Cruz Island, signed the decree creating the brand new reserve referred to as “Hermandad” (Brotherhood).

To mark the opening of the marine reserve, he then lower a ribbon made out of supplies collected throughout coastal cleanups carried out within the Galapagos.

The new reserve is included into the 138,000 sq. kilometers (50,200 sq. miles) of reserve which have existed since March 1998.

So the archipelago that impressed English naturalist Charles Darwin has now expanded to a powerful 198,000 sq. kilometers of protected marine area.

The Galapagos marine reserve, wherein industrial fishing is prohibited, is the second-largest on this planet. More than 2,900 marine species have been reported inside the archipelago, which is a Natural World Heritage Site.

Authorities are planning for protected areas in adjoining Colombia and Panama to hitch later, creating a global marine biosphere reserve.

The leaders of these two international locations additionally signed the decree together with Lasso.

Lasso introduced the growth of the Galapagos marine reserve, which has distinctive wildlife and fragile ecosystems, in November in Glasgow, on the event of the COP 26 local weather summit.

The mission was in change for a discount in Ecuador’s worldwide debt.

A ‘clear message’

The creation of the “Brotherhood” reserve is a “clear message for the world,” mentioned Lasso Friday, describing it as a “new relationship with the Earth, a new understanding of what constitutes progress for humanity.”

Colombian President Ivan Duque and former US president Bill Clinton attended the occasion, along with authorities officers from Costa Rica and Panama.

Duque mentioned that ultimately including Colombia’s Malpelo islands and Panama’s Coiba islands to the huge marine reserve will permit for the migration of species corresponding to sea turtles, whales, sharks and manta rays.

This new reserve “will guarantee the survival of 40 percent of the world’s marine species,” Duque mentioned.

“We may be a small territory… but the planet is also ours,” mentioned Lasso.

“The seas are great regulators of the global climate,” he mentioned, including that “taking care of them is not naive idealism, it is a vital necessity.”

Located within the Pacific some 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) off the coast of Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands are a protected wildlife space and residential to distinctive species of wildlife.

The archipelago was made well-known by British geologist and naturalist Charles Darwin’s observations on evolution there.

© 2022 AFP