Ecuador calls for a global pact to fight marine pollution

Volunteer divers and park rangers from the Galapagos Islands Marine Reserve extracted more than 2,239 kilograms of trash from the bottom of the Galapagos Sea. With this collection, 42 tons of marine litter have already been collected in certain marine bays of the Colon archipelago since 2017, after the retention of the Chinese ship Fu Yuan Yu Leng 999. And the quantity continues to increase.

Environmentalists have found wooden furniture, condoms, tires and diapers, as well as plastic waste, ropes, nets and buoys that marine life confuses with the food they eat and poison themselves, or crosses to get trapped and, over time, die from strangulation. Turtles that eat jellyfish, for example, can confuse plastic bags with these marine animals. When the veterinary autopsy is applied, the presence of the remains of bags in the intestines is observed.

During the Ministerial Conference on Marine Waste and Plastic Pollution convened by Ecuador, Germany, Ghana and Vietnam, held in Geneva, the Minister of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition of Ecuador, Gustavo Manrique, presented the country’s commitments to fight against marine contamination. . The meeting was followed by in-person and virtual participation from over 140 countries and 1,100 representatives and delegates from international organizations, civil society organizations, academia and the private sector.

“It is essential to initiate a process of negotiation for an effective and ambitious global binding agreement on marine plastic pollution, with a shared vision, objectives and concrete commitments to reduce and eliminate plastics in the environment ”, declared Minister Manrique.

Every year, 13 million tonnes of plastic are released into the ocean, according to UN calculations. It is estimated that 80% of this waste comes from land, while the remaining 20% ​​comes from marine sources., for example, parts of nets and other items left in the water by fleets of fishing boats, according to the United Nations Environment Agency. Besides, The United Nations has warned that plastics in the oceans kill at least 100,000 marine species each year.

This is reflected in a survey by scientists from the UK and Australia, published in Frontiers in marine sciences, who revealed that young turtles in the Pacific and Indian oceans consume plastic as part of water pollution. The study shows that turtles that swim in the Pacific Ocean consume the most plastic. The waste that these animals ingest could cause them to die prematurely (before breeding) leading to a decline in their population.

The Galapagos Islands are one of the ecosystems most affected by this pollution. The fishing fleets that stalk the archipelago every year not only destroy the species that swim in and out of the marine reserve, but also cause water pollution by throwing away thousands of plastic bottles that have even reached the shores of the sea. Galapagos.

Only in 2020 they were counted over 8,000 plastic bottles dumped by the Chinese fishing fleet south of the islands, as reported by Alberto Andrade, coordinator of the Front Insulaire.

During a very long time, Citizens of the Galapagos Islands and mainland Ecuador have expressed outrage at the plastic debris pouring into the islands. Although this problem has been recorded for many years, Galapagos residents, nature rights activists and environmentalists say the amount of litter has increased, which is consistent with the presence of predominantly Chinese fishing fleets still on the edge. from the abyss. of the Ecuadorian exclusive economic zone.

These bottles are labeled with legends and logo-syllable inscriptions, very characteristic of some Asian languages. These objects thrown into the sea indiscriminately represent irreparable damage to the ecosystem on the part of Chinese fishing fleets. Experts noted that the existence of these fleets poses a number of potential risks to the health of marine and terrestrial ecosystems and the protection of natural resources. It is estimated that only Chinese fleets produce between 23,000 and 25,000 plastic bottles each day, and that these plastic bottles are dumped directly into the sea.

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