Case builds for bigger Galápagos Reserve

Scientists say the Galápagos Reserve needs significant expansion to improve protection of its spectacular array of marine life, particularly migratory species. (Photos by Max Bello)

Manolo Yépez has fished off Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands since he was 16, choosing the same livelihood as his father and grandfather before him. For a time in his 20s, he engaged in illegal fishing, targeting ostensibly protected sharks and sea cucumbers and delivering them by boat at night to Asian fishing crews “as drug traffickers do.” But since then he has been scrupulous about using sustainable methods, fishing only for the species—and in the specified periods—allowed in the Galápagos Marine Reserve, a vast conservation zone around the archipelago. Now 42, Yépez says he has become far more mindful of the need to protect Galápagos marine life. That’s thanks in part to unpaid work he has done to help scientists monitor archipelago waters for microplastic waste, the tiny particles that are now a major source of ocean pollution. It also has to do with a small tourism business he... Read more →