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Marine Life & Conservation

Cocaine, Corruption, and Shark Fins

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Fourteen years ago in 2001, I took my ship Ocean Warrior to Cocos Island, Costa Rica. When we arrived we found an Ecuadorian longliner, the San Jose, busily slaughtering sharks not far off the beach of the Cocos Island National Park.

The rangers were watching from the shore but not having a boat, they could do nothing.

We offered our help and together the Cocos Island rangers and the Sea Shepherd crew stopped the San Jose, confiscated many kilometers of longlines and hundreds of dead sharks. We then assisted with the arrest of the crew.

The San Jose was the first large illegal fishing boat caught and stopped in the Cocos Island Marine Reserve and the first illegal fishing vessel to be confiscated by the Costa Rican courts.

Because of that arrest, I made a formal agreement with the Costa Rican Ministry of the Environment to begin patrolling the Cocos Island Marine Reserve in partnership with the rangers beginning in 2002.

Sea Shepherd began a partnership just two years before with the Galapagos National Park and the Ecuadorian Federal Police and that partnership continues fifteen years later.

The partnership with Costa Rica never happened because a Costa Rican poaching vessel the Varadero I was caught by my crew and I in Guatemalan territorial waters in 2002 and at the request of the Guatemalan authorities, we stopped their illegal activities. No one was harmed and their vessel was not damaged.

However these eight fishermen returned to Costa Rica and accused me of trying to murder them. As a result I went to court and presented our video evidence and witnesses and the charges were dropped. A week later they charged me with eight counts of assault. Once again I went to court and once again the charges were dismissed and I was given clearance to depart Costa Rica.

I never heard another word about this until May 2012 when the German border guards arrested me in Frankfurt on a Costa Rican extradition warrant for a charge which was now stated as something called “shipwreck endangerment.”

This arrest was followed immediately by a Japanese extradition request. Japan wanted me extradited for “conspiracy to trespass” on a whaling ship and for “obstruction of business.”

Germany made the decision to extradite me to Japan which gave me no choice but to skip bail and escape to sea where I spent the next 15 months from August 2012 until the end of October 2013.

Because of the two extradition requests and the recognition of these extradition requests by Germany, I was placed on the Interpol Red List in August 2012.

No one has ever been placed on the Interpol Red List for activities that did not cause injury or death, property damage or the theft of money, state secrets, or property.

In my case, I stopped a shark finning operation in Guatemalan waters at the request of the Guatemalan government and Japan charged me because of our opposition to their illegal whaling operations (as ruled by the International Court of Justice) in the Southern Ocean.

But lets consider the Costa Rican extradition request. That incident occurred in 2002 and eight poachers from a vessel that had already been previously charged with poaching brought in a complaint after we stopped them from poaching. They had no video or photographic evidence. Sea Shepherd documented the entire incident. The accusation that we tried to murder them was ridiculous.

The charges were brought against me in the port city of Puntarenas where illegal fishing is epidemic. During the initial trial we discovered and documented the illegal landing of sharks in Puntarenas. It was not hard, the shark fins were being dried in public view. We reported the activity to the police and the authorities did nothing. Instead we were warned to not harass the fishermen.

Why would the court in Puntarenas act so aggressively to respond to a complaint by eight poachers?

There was and is more behind this and I think the motivating factor is narcotics.

With the recent revelation that a man named Gilbert Bell has been arrested and fingered as the notorious drug lord “Macho Coca” things have become clearer.

Gilbert Bell is an advisor to the Costa Rican Fisheries Institute (INCOPESCA), a government agency that has been the subject of a few criminal investigations.

More than half the INCOPESCA board is made up of representatives of the fishing industry.

In 2012 INCOPESCA’s Vice President Alvaro Moreno was fired for corruption and since 2011, the current President of INCOPESCA Luis Dobles has been under criminal investigation for failure to sanction two fishing boats accused of shark finning in 2011.

In 2014 The U.S. Coast Guard captured a Costa Rican fishing vessel and arrested three Costa Ricans and one Nicaraguan suspect off the coast of Cocos Island. The boat had 2.3 tons of cocaine on board.

“We are more concerned about these [drug trafficking] organizations infiltrating our fishermen or the fishing boats that were once dedicated to fishing and are now dedicated to the trafficking of drugs,” said Public Security Vice Minister Gustavo Mata. “Generally speaking, more of our fishermen are dedicating themselves to coca trafficking.”

However back in 2001, rangers on Cocos Island told me at that time that they were very concerned about drugs being transported on fishing vessels. This is not anything new.

Cocos Island is a waypoint for the transportation of drugs and has been for some time.

It is becoming more clear to me that our plans to come to Cocos Island in 2002 for permanent patrols represented a threat to the narco-traffickers.

Thus charges were laid against me to prevent these permanent patrols from happening. This is also the reason that our offer of two first-rate fast patrol vessels for Cocos Island has been turned down.

INCOPESCA and other people of influence in Costa Rica do not want eyes and ears anywhere near Cocos Island – not because of illegal fishing but more because of illegal shipments and at-sea transfers of drugs.

The case against me simply does not make sense. In 2002, at the request of the Guatemalan government, we stopped a Costa Rican shark-finning vessel, the Varadero I in Guatemalan waters. We caught and filmed them in the act of catching and finning sharks. We stopped them with fire hoses. No one was hurt and there was no property damage. A film crew onboard working on the documentary film Sharkwater documented the entire incident.

The eight fishermen onboard the Varadero I reported to Costa Rican authorities that we tried to murder them. They had no evidence, no documentation, just their word against the 30 Sea Shepherd crew members and independent film-makers who witnessed and documented the incident on the Ocean Warrior.

I appeared in court in 2002 and our film clearly demonstrated that there was no attempt to murder the fishermen. That charge was dismissed. A week later I was charged once again with 8 counts of assault. Once again our film disproved these charges and the charges were dismissed and I was given clearance to depart Costa Rica.

I heard nothing more until I was arrested 10 years later in Germany, this time for the charge of “shipwreck endangerment.”

The accusation as it stands now states that the incident took place in international waters yet it also states an exact position, a position that is well inside Guatemalan waters where Guatemalan law allowed us to intervene against this illegal activity. The official accusation contradicts itself stating that the incident was in Guatemalan waters and also in international waters. It can’t be both yet in the accusation it is stated as such.

The Costa Rican court states there is no evidence that the Costa Rican fishermen were poachers despite the fact that we filmed them poaching and the fact that in 2001, the Varadero I was arrested in the Galapagos (Ecuador) for illegal fishing.

The amount of time and effort that Costa Rica has invested in this case with monies from the Costa Rican people, over 13 years, is completely disproportional to a situation where no one was hurt and property was not damaged.

The obvious question is why?

For years I have thought that the courts, INCOPESCA and other government officials were protecting poachers and there is a great deal of evidence that they have in fact been protecting poachers.

Now in light of the arrest of Macho Coca however, I think it goes deeper than that. The arrest of drug lord and INCOPESCA advisor Gilbert Bell leads me to believe that this is also about protecting the narco-traffickers.

In May 2013, turtle conservationist Jairo Mora Sandoval was murdered by narco-poachers at Moins beach. This year Sea Shepherd crew protecting turtles were assaulted by poachers at the same beach. Instead of investigating the assaults, the police harassed the Sea Shepherd crew and searched the Sea Shepherd camp for drugs, scattering and damaging the property of the crew in the process.

In the case of Jairo Mora Sandoval, his killers were acquitted earlier this year by the Costa Rican Court, not because they were innocent, but because the police and the prosecution conveniently lost crucial evidence. Moins beach, where Jairo was murdered, is a beach that is frequently used to drop off drugs from Colombia and Panama.

Earlier this year Sea Shepherd had arranged with the Costa Rican Ministry of the Environment for a plan to provide assistance once again to defend Cocos Island. Sea Shepherd Global Director Alex Cornelissen was invited to meet with the Ministry and flew to San Jose from the Netherlands to do just that. However at the last minute the meeting was cancelled with the excuse being that they could not work with Sea Shepherd as long as I was wanted by the courts and Costa Rica continues seeking to extradite me.

The rangers at Cocos Island need assistance. They need a good full time patrol boat. We have such a boat – two of them in fact – and we can deploy these boats on a permanent basis to work in partnership with the rangers to stop all poaching activities in the Cocos Island Marine Reserve. We would also like to install an AIS system to monitor all vessel traffic. We installed just such a system in the Galapagos for around one million Euros and we maintain it on a permanent basis and it has been a very successful program.

However, I don’t believe that some Costa Rican government officials want eyes and ears that they cannot control anywhere near Cocos Island. They don’t want the world to see what I believe to be is a major way station in the international traffic of drugs, primarily of cocaine.

I am taking this case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and we will continue to investigate just why it is that the Costa Rican government is protecting poachers and refusing to properly patrol the Cocos Islands National Park Marine Reserve.

In addition to being one of the co-founders of Greenpeace in 1972 and Greenpeace International in 1979, Paul Watson is the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society - an organization dedicated to research, investigation and enforcement of laws, treaties, resolutions and regulations established to protect marine wildlife worldwide.

Marine Life & Conservation

New report shows simple measures needed to cut beach plastic pollution

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The Marine Conservation Society has launched its annual State of our Beaches 2023 report, highlighting the need for less single-use plastic items and more refillable options.

The charity’s beach cleaning programme, now in its 30th year, asks volunteers to record all litter that they find within a 100-metre stretch of beach. By gathering vital data from across the UK and Channel Islands, the charity creates change for cleaner seas and a healthier planet through policy and industry change. Last year, over 148 kilometres of beach were surveyed by volunteers, who removed 17,208kgs of litter from our coast.

Using data collected by over 14,000 volunteers, the State of our Beaches 2023 report shows that half of all litter collected came from public sources – either dumped, blown or washed onto our beaches.

Drinks-related litter, such as plastic bottles, caps and cans were one of the most found items, with an average of 16 found per 100 metres of beach surveyed. This figure is up 14% compared to the charity’s 2022 report.

Plastics caps and lids were recorded on 89% of surveys, with over 30,000 found in total. Plastic bottles were also commonly collected, with 73% of surveys finding this single-use item – a 4% increase compared to 2022. The charity’s inland litter pick survey, Source to Sea, also reported finding plastic bottles on 92% of cleans.

However, the charity’s State of Our Beaches 2023 report also indicates that some types of litter are on a downward trend. Although still in the top 10 litter items, disposable plastic cutlery, trays and straws were found on 5% fewer beaches across the UK, showing that bans on these plastic items between 2022 – 2023 could be working. The presence of plastic cotton bud sticks also dropped by 14%.

Lizzie Price, Beachwatch Manager at the Marine Conservation Society, said, “Half of the litter found on our beaches originates from public sources, underscoring the pressing issue of single-use plastic. Evidence shows that refillable alternatives and litter return schemes effectively reduce rubbish, as demonstrated by the decline our data has shown in items like plastic bags and disposable cutlery.

“Urgent and decisive action from UK governments is needed to accelerate our shift towards a circular economy, where we reuse, repair and recycle. The public needs greater access to refillable products and systems need to be implemented in which manufacturers are responsible for their waste.”

Governments across the UK have committed to delivering deposit return schemes from October 2025. However, the proposed scheme in England does not include glass items, despite glass being found on 52% of beaches in 2023. The charity is calling for governments across the UK to introduce compatible all inclusive deposit return schemes as soon as possible. This would see aluminium cans, and plastic and glass bottles have a 20p deposit which would be returned when recycled which would reduce drinks-related pollution.

Businesses are, however, starting to take refillable and reusable options into their own hands. Supermarket chain, Aldi, the largest corporate funder of the charity’s 2024 Beachwatch programme, is already leading the charge in refillable items by trialling refillable options for cereals and porridge oats in their stores over the past 5 months.

Plastics and Packaging Director, Luke Emery, from Aldi, who are running 4 beach cleans for staff and volunteers in 2024, said, We are continually working to reduce single-use plastics and packaging, and making unpackaged product options more commonplace for our customers is a key part of this. We are really pleased with the uptake of our refillable range so far by customers. Not only are we making sustainable shopping more accessible, but we also offer refill products for a better price than the packaged alternative, helping our customers save money.”

Marine litter is one of the biggest threats to our seas, with plastic breaking down over time into microplastics and threatening marine life which can ingest or become entangled in them. The Marine Conservation Society is urging the UK Government to move faster on its policies to cut down plastic waste and prevent items from reaching our seas.

To find out more about the charity’s beach cleans and how to get involved, please visit mcsuk.org/beach-cleans

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Guarding Against Coral Invaders

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Protecting (Dutch) Caribbean Reefs from Unomia stolonifera

Recent reports highlight the concerning spread of the invasive soft coral, Unomia stolonifera, currently devastating Venezuela’s marine ecosystems and detected in Cuba. With the potential threat of its expansion to the (Dutch) Caribbean islands, urgent action and awareness are essential to safeguard marine biodiversity and local economies from possible catastrophic consequences.

Invasive species are animals or plants from another region of the world that don’t belong in their new environment. These species can have major ecological effects by decimating native flora or fauna. They can also cause large economic losses and impact human health. Invasive species also pose a significant threat to marine ecosystems worldwide, including the Dutch Caribbean. Among these invaders is the octocoral species Unomia stolonifera or “Pulsing Xenia”, originally from the Indo-Pacific. With its rapid growth and lack of natural predators, this species can outcompete native species and disrupt fragile marine habitats such as seagrass beds and coral reefs.

Background

The invasive soft coral U. stolonifera was first identified in 2014, off the coast of Venezuela. It is believed to have been introduced via the illegal aquarium trade.  Since this species can reproduce sexually and asexually (or fragment), even small pieces can regenerate to spread.  Once introduced it quickly took over shallow reefs and hard substrate at depths of 0-50 meters, outcompeting local corals and seagrass for space.  Follow on surveys found that this coral species exhibited average percentage cover as high as 80%, vastly outcompeting native corals. In highly colonized areas, fish are disappearing due to loss of habitats.

In 2022, during a survey conducted in Cuba by the University of Havana, an unknown octocoral was discovered which was later identified as the invasive Unomia stolonifera. It is suspected that the coral larvae arrived in ballast water from fossil fuel ships originating from Venezuela, as nearby sites adjacent to Venezuelan ports have been heavily affected by the invasion.

How to help

Prevention through continuous monitoring, particularly in high-risk areas such as marine harbors and oil facilities, is paramount. Early detection plays a pivotal role in mitigating the threat posed by Unomia stolonifera.

The public’s involvement and awareness are also vital. Local communities, recreational divers, tourists, and all stakeholders are urged to participate in early detection efforts by reporting sightings (photo, location and date) of this invasive coral to their respective Protected Area Management Organization (PMO’s)- the Fundacion Parke Nacional Aruba (FPNA)STINAPA BonaireCARMABI Curaçao Saba Conservation Foundation (SCF)Nature Foundation St. Maarten (NFSXM) and St. Eustatius National Parks (STENAPA). If an invaded area is confirmed, follow the recommendations by the local PMO’s.

Keys to Success

Despite the challenges, early detection is key to mitigating the threat posed by Unomia stolonifera. With continued vigilance, research, and community engagement, there is hope for containing this potential issue before it becomes a major threat.

About the DCNA

The Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance (DCNA) supports (science) communication and outreach in the Dutch Caribbean region by making nature related (scientific) information more widely available through amongst others the Dutch Caribbean Biodiversity Database, DCNA’s news platform BioNews and through the press. This article contains the results from several scientific studies but the studies themselves are not DCNA studies. No rights can be derived from the content. DCNA is not liable for the content and the in(direct) impacts resulting from publishing this article.

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