Table of Contents
ECUADOR
- Capital – Qioto
- A country in north-western South America
- One of 17 megadiverse countries in the world
- Ecuador hosts many endemic plants and animals, such as those of the Galápagos Islands.
MEGADIVERSE COUNTRIES
- The term megadiverse country refers to any one of a group of nations that harborthe majority of Earth’s species and high numbers of endemic species. Conservation International identified 17 megadiverse countries in 1998.
GALÁPAGOS ISLANDS
- Renowned worldwide for its unique species, the islands host a wide array of aquatic wildlife, including marine iguanas, fur seals, and waved albatrosses. The giant tortoises found here –‘Galápagos’ in old Spanish–give the islands its name.
- Ecuador made a part of the Galapagos a wildlife sanctuary in 1935, and the sanctuary became the Galapagos National Park in 1959. In 1978, the islands became UNESCO’s first World Heritage Site.
CHINA ARRIVES
- Ecuador is on alert due to the appearance of a huge fleet of mostly Chinese-flagged fishing vessels off its Galapagos Islands.
- In 2017, a Chinese vessel was caught in the marine reserve with 300 tonnes of wildlife, most of it sharks.
- “We are on alert, [conducting] surveillance, patrolling to avoid an incident such as what happened in 2017,” Ecuadorean Defence Minister Oswaldo Jarrintold reporters.
CHINA’S STATED POSITION
- China on its part has maintained that it is a “responsible fishing nation” having a “zero tolerance” policy toward illegal fishing.
CHINESE HYPOCRISY
- Thisincidentisanotherreminder of the Chinese expansionist attitude. On one hand Chinese navy sinks Vietnamese fishing ships in South China Sea, but on the other hand China brazenly tries to fish in waters that arefarawayfromitsterritories
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