Simon is now an official distributor for Nauticam Underwater housings.
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Galapagos Issues |
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The President of Ecuador, Rafael Correra, has recently been adjusting the laws which directly affect the protection of the UNESCO World Heritage site - The Galapagos Islands.
In the past month President Rafael Correa has made it more difficult for tour boats to take Scuba Diving tourists to the islands of Wolf and Darwin in the Northern Galapagos . This led to large scale confusion within the diving industry, with many people seeing their 'trip of a lifetime' canceled with immediate effect. The only vessels allowed to continue to operate in this region (and the only vessels with the correct paperwork at time of writing) are the Galapagos Aggressor I and II and the Sky Dancer. As suspected at the time, this was just the first move in a larger plan, with their goal not being to ensure all vessels in the Galapagos run with correct papers, but to enable plundering of fish stocks from the Galapagos National Park. A week or so later President Correra decreed that shark fin 'accidentally' obtained could now be sold within Ecuador. This had previously been illegal. This means that fishermen from the ports of Ecuador can now make the trip over to Galapagos and longline one of the last remaining pristine refuges for many vulnerable, threatened and endangered shark species. Then when quizzed about their haul can maintain that they accidentally caught the sharks outside of the Galapagos National Park. You can read a little more here. Shark Finning is the practice of catching sharks, and often - whilst still alive, removing their fins before throwing the still conscious shark back into the sea to drown (most sharks cannot move oxygenated water over their gills without moving, and they can't move without fins....). The value of the fins is high, but most of the money from the sale of the fins goes to mafia-type middlemen who organise the transport of fins to Asia where they are considered an aphrodisiac. |
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