The EPCA is dedicated to the conservation and protection of marine life in the important region of the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean called the East Tropical Pacific Corridor or Corridor Maritimo. The broad region between the continent and the Galápagos Archipelago is a critical migratory pathway for marine fauna and is linked to marine ecosystems throughout the vast area of remote islands and continental margins. The goal of the EPCA is to encourage, facilitate, and support marine biology education and scientific research in the region.
The EPCA aims to link together a variety of projects and campaigns focused on the East Pacific Corridor region. The foundation intends to link programs at the Museum of Biodiversity in Panama; shark-finning monitoring; exploration, inventory, and DNA sequencing of fish biodiversity in Galápagos, among other programs in preparation. We are positioning ourselves differently from the web of conservation and governmental organizations filling this space, by concentrating on coordinating science and scientists with critical marine biodiversity conservation goals.
The tropical eastern Pacific Ocean is a rich and diverse marine ecosystem, under grave threat from climate change and damage from unrestrained development and illegal fishing. The Corridor, the marine passage above the equator between the Galápagos Archipelago and offshore islands and the continent, is a key component of the region's marine ecosystem, exposed to many serious environmental threats and affecting much of the marine ecology of the region, from California to Peru.
our 2024 Galapagos photo-expedition
we sponsored a very successful expedition in May 2024, bringing together expert underwater photographers and marine scientists from EPCA, Lewis & Clark University, and the Charles Darwin Foundation. We photographed intensively, obtaining more than 5,000 underwater photographs documenting many species and life stages for the first time. We also collected samples for DNA barcoding, to help identify species, and, in particular, to complete an inventory and DNA barcode database of the fish fauna of the Galápagos, focusing on the rare, undescribed, and poorly known species that are key to a complete understanding of the Galápagos marine ecosystem
the EPCA is preparing for publication the new edition of the seminal guide to the fishes from 1997
The new book is titled
Fishes of the Galápagos Islands: Natural History and DNA, From the Shore to the Abyss
A new expanded volume with lots of new data and species, and extending deepwater coverage to the seamounts and ridges, especially in the vast new Reserva Marina Hermandad of Ecuador
promoting open access for the 21st century, it will be available as a free digital download