Alarm over discovery of hundreds of Chinese fishing vessels near Galápagos Islands

AngryMoth · Jul 28, 2020

The problem is most of the sharks visiting the Galapagos are migratory so boats sitting on the edge of the protection zone can catch them on their way in or out. It would help if they extended the park to a 100 mile radius which was being talked about at one point but I guess hasn't happened, but it would be difficult to police I guess and it's not like they don't already fish inside illegally..

Sharks populations have declined 90% over the last 50 years, if the world lets things continue as is they will be gone before too long. I hope with by continuing to spread awareness of the problem we could see something similar to what happened with whales, which were hunted to near extinction in the 20th century but are now thriving again. But sadly I think probably just not enough people will care about saving sharks.

BringBackSonics · Jul 28, 2020

RROCKMAN said:
yall should maybe chill on the F China deal? It's a bit more nuanced than that. Maybe specify that you dislike their current government's actions?

is F CCP acceptable?

Jinroh · Jul 28, 2020

RROCKMAN said:
yall should maybe chill on the F China deal? It's a bit more nuanced than that. Maybe specify that you dislike their current government's actions?

Let's totally chill about environmental destruction, reeducation camps, neocolonialism and ethnic cleansing through forced sterilizations, abortions, colonization and cultural destruction.

BringBackSonics · Jul 28, 2020

Dhaos said:
Do you know why all these animals and habitats are endangered in the first place? White colonialism and imperialism that spread all over the globe and caused mass destruction of indigenous habitats. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.livescience.com/amp/65507-conservation-colonialism-legacy.html

Just because some nouveau rich Chinese idiots are now consuming stupid Traditional medicine and threatening to put the nail on the coffin for these animals doesn't mean you get to blame the extinction of these animals on China. They are endangered because of hundreds of years of destruction by white people. Same goes for the rest of the environment.

Get the F outta here with the whataboutism. Make a thread for that.

maximumzero · Jul 28, 2020

Humans won't be satisfied until the planet is just a burnt husk devoid of any life.

brawndolicious · Jul 28, 2020

Rei Toei said:
Reminds me of this story that recently broke: https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/china-illegal-fishing-fleet/

This is a really cool article that goes into the ripple effects of overharvesting resources and how investigators create techniques to track illegal fishing.

For anyone else who clicks on it, don't be turned off by how long it is. It just has a lot of images showing the routes of the fishing vessels.

Dhaos said:
Do you know why all these animals and habitats are endangered in the first place? White colonialism and imperialism that spread all over the globe and caused mass destruction of indigenous habitats. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.livescience.com/amp/65507-conservation-colonialism-legacy.html

Just because some nouveau rich Chinese idiots are now consuming stupid Traditional medicine and threatening to put the nail on the coffin for these animals doesn't mean you get to blame the extinction of these animals on China. They are endangered because of hundreds of years of destruction by white people. Same goes for the rest of the environment.

I don't know why the poster you replied to brought up TCM stuff but when it comes to this fishing problem, the issue comes down to supply and demand in the meat market. Apparently, right now China accounts for 15% of the worldwide fishing which is proportional to their population. We all know the only solution is really cutting back on how much meat we eat globally.

The China/North Korea specific issue has to do with illegal fishing as there does seem to be a disregard for the limits and sanctions that were agreed upon. I think that's a pretty simple case of economic exploitation. You pay Kim Jong Un some money and get to take the resources of his people.

chrisPjelly · Jul 28, 2020

but what about but what about but what about

Dhaos · Jul 28, 2020

BringBackSonics said:
Get the F outta here with the whataboutism. Make a thread for that.

Why not? Maybe it's because you can't just get away with blaming China for all that is wrong with the world? Don't like having a mirror reflecting the ugly right back at you?

In this case, the Chinese fishing ships are not even doing anything illegal. Get over it.

Want to talk about what's driving the overfishing? The US happily imports 90% of its fish. Who's really driving the demand here?

Dhaos · Jul 28, 2020

chrisPjelly said:
but what about but what about but what about

But fuck China or I mean fuck CCP or lol whataboutism

AngryMoth · Jul 28, 2020

In fairness to China it's not like they're the only ones that do this and consumption of shark fin soup which is main route of the problem is actually massively down in the mainland, but unfortunately on the rise in other parts of Asia.

Tsuyu · Jul 28, 2020

maximumzero said:
Humans won't be satisfied until the planet is just a burnt husk devoid of any life.

I see folks who refused to consume less meat the same as those who don't wear masks during this pandemic.

Titik · Jul 28, 2020

It was so sad watching those videos of live pangolins in that Chinese market. Like they were obviously distressed and crying

BringBackSonics · Jul 28, 2020

Dhaos said:
Why not? Maybe it's because you can't just get away with blaming China for all that is wrong with the world? Don't like having a mirror reflecting the ugly right back at you?

In this case, the Chinese fishing ships are not even doing anything illegal. Get over it.

Want to talk about what's driving the overfishing? The US happily imports 90% of its fish. Who's really driving the demand here?

Why not what? If you have an issue with colonialism by Europe or the United States than make that thread. All this does is trying diminish and hand wave CCP's actions. And while it's technically legal, as others have pointed out it's the CCP is definitely operating in a gray area.

tiebreaker · Jul 28, 2020

Guys, it's legal, so it's fine! /s

Nocturne · Jul 28, 2020

BringBackSonics said:
Why not what? If you have an issue with colonialism by Europe or the United States than make that thread. All this does is trying diminish and hand wave CCP's actions. And while it's technically legal, as others have pointed out it's the CCP is definitely operating in a gray area.

why do you keep talking about the 'CCP's actions' for a bunch of fishers going where the money is. the fishers are not fishing for sharks because the CCP gave them a directive to destroy the galapagos islands. they're fishing for sharks because sharks make a lot of money and they have families to go back to and feed. most of them are probably not on these boats because fishing for sharks is a safe and easy activity. stop condensing every single thing that chinese people are related to back to '''china''' and the CCP

Seductivpancakes · Jul 28, 2020

It's not whataboutism when the poster is claiming China or the CCP or maybe every Chinese person, cause there's no nuance, of trying to wipe out "cool" animals.

The CCP is responsible for a lot of shitty things, there's zero reasons to make up a narrative unless your goal is to be xenophobic.

Sqrt · Jul 28, 2020

deepFlaw · Jul 28, 2020

Would be cool if other posters would also do their part to read the publicly accessible AsianEra meeting so that they can consider how the lazy (or outright racist) ways they post in threads like this make others on this website feel uncomfortable and unable to participate in discussions. As someone who has not been in Etc much lately I did not realize that it had gotten like this before keeping up with the meeting, but I guess I should have expected as much.

BringBackSonics said:
Get the F outta here with the whataboutism. Make a thread for that.

It's not a whataboutism when they're explaining the full historical cause of the same topic...

Deleted member 2210 · Jul 28, 2020

Dhaos said:
Do you know why all these animals and habitats are endangered in the first place? White colonialism and imperialism that spread all over the globe and caused mass destruction of indigenous habitats. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.livescience.com/amp/65507-conservation-colonialism-legacy.html

Just because some nouveau rich Chinese idiots are now consuming stupid Traditional medicine and threatening to put the nail on the coffin for these animals doesn't mean you get to blame the extinction of these animals on China. They are endangered because of hundreds of years of destruction by white people. Same goes for the rest of the environment.

Whoa whoa whoa don't make the white people mad comrade. What's next? You gonna talk about Chr*st*an M*ss*ons?

Dhaos · Jul 28, 2020

Nocturne said:
why do you keep talking about the 'CCP's actions' for a bunch of fishers going where the money is. the fishers are not fishing for sharks because the CCP gave them a directive to destroy the galapagos islands. they're fishing for sharks because sharks make a lot of money and they have families to go back to and feed. most of them are probably not on these boats because fishing for sharks is a safe and easy activity. stop condensing every single thing that chinese people are related to back to '''china''' and the CCP

YES, thank you. A bunch of greedy (or poor or desperate?) fisherman from China doing unsavory (but still legal) things does not need to be tied to 'fuck China' or 'fuck CCP'. Grouping every single thing a Chinese person does, good or evil, to China or CCP like they are a single entity dehumanizes Chinese people and yes, is absolutely racist and xenophobic.

Big-E · Jul 28, 2020

This article was a good test for those who have issues with reading comprehension. An article that does not mention the Chinese government, mentions that there were other country flags in the fleet, mentions that this has been a thing since 1978 though this is one of the more larger recent ones, and mentions that they have not done anything illegal, gets boiled down to "Fuck China".

Poodlestrike · Jul 28, 2020

Locking thread while we review posts and reports.

Edit: thread rebooted, please continue discussion here: