Industrial fishing compliance with a new marine corridor near the Galapagos Islands

Quantifying fishing pressure in under-resourced marine regions remains a challenge to understanding the patterns and impacts of fishing. These issues are compounded in areas with complex marine zoning regulations or those that have changed over time. Here, we use satellite-based fishing vessel positioning to study industrial fishing effort in within Ecuador's Insular Exclusive Economic Zone (I-EEZ), which includes areas open to all fishing, the Galapagos Marine Reserve (GMR) and the newly-established Hermandad Marine Reserve (HMR). From 2019–2023, we identified 145 large, industrial (non-artisanal) fishing vessels (910 gross tonnage on average) from 10 countries fishing within the I-EEZ outside the GMR. Eighty-seven percent of the fishing effort was accounted for by Ecuadorian vessels using tuna purse seines and drifting longlines in equal proportions, while the effort of foreign vessels was accounted for by tuna purse seines. In this time window, we observed 64,626 h of fishing within the I-EEZ. In addition, we studied the effect of a newly declared marine protected area (MPA) in 2022, known as the Hermandad Marine Reserve, which created an additional 60,000 square kilometers of protected area. We documented an 88 % decrease in fishing effort within the Hermandad Marine Reserve after its implementation. Collectively, our results highlight the wide range of fishing activities within and around the HMR marine protected area, especially for migratory marine megafauna.