| Chinese Fishing Fleet Wreaks Havoc in Latin American Oceans | |
| By Julieta Pelcastre |
Source: dialogo-americas.com |
2/9/2022 |
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This year will be no exception when it comes to the Chinese fishing fleet’s illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing practices in the territorial waters of Argentina, Chile, and Ecuador, the Argentine independent journalism site Urgente 24 said on January 3, 2022.
“It is estimated that 450 vessels will be in the Argentine sea for the season that begins [in January] and ends in April,” Urgente 24 reported. “In a short time, the number of vessels will likely reach 500. If one considers that each vessel could catch about 50 tons of squid per night, the economic damage is enormous,” the Argentine newspaper La Opinion Austral reported on January 14.
Foreign vessels illegally extract some 750,000 tons of fishery resources from Argentina’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) each year, the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Argentine Society of Global Strategic Studies says on its website. |
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Depleting South America
The Chinese vessels spent the first half of 2021 in the Atlantic off the coast of Argentina, plundering squid stocks, illegally transferring fish between ships, and turning off transponders, the international investigative journalism organization InSight Crime said on December 23.
Meanwhile, the Chinese fishing fleet preys on the Argentine sea even during the closed season. “The Chinese fleet has been on the edge of the EEZ since late 2021, despite the Chinese government’s commitment to suspend squid fishing during the breeding and spawning season,” the Chilean newspaper Clarín reported.
Similarly, the fleet plundered important fishing areas bordering Chile and Ecuador in the Pacific. Its vessels have become expert at trawling just outside of the 200-nautical-mile EEZ zones of South American countries, catching fish by the millions, InSight Crime said. |
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