Ecuador created a massive new marine reserve Friday north of its Galapagos islands, forming a Pacific corridor up to Costa Rica’s Cocos Island National Park to preserve species of migratory fauna, such as sharks.
President Guillermo Lasso, on board a scientific vessel from the Galapagos National Park (PNG) anchored in the bay of Puerto Ayora Santa Cruz Island, signed the decree creating the new reserve called “Hermandad” (Brotherhood).
The new reserve is incorporated into the 138,000 square kilometers (50,200 square miles) of reserve that have existed since March 1998.
So the archipelago that inspired English naturalist Charles Darwin has now expanded to an impressive 198,000 square kilometers of protected marine area.
The Galapagos marine reserve, in which industrial fishing is prohibited, is the second-largest in the world. More than 2,900 marine species have been reported within it.
Authorities are planning for protected areas in adjacent Colombia and Panama to join later, creating an international marine biosphere reserve.
Lasso announced the expansion of the Galapagos marine reserve, which has unique flora and fauna and fragile ecosystems, in November in Glasgow, on the occasion of the COP 26 climate summit.
