More than half of the country’s gross domestic product was based on ecotourism, mostly because of people drawn to the world-class snorkeling and scuba diving. In 2015, the average number of tourists per month coming from China soared to nearly eleven thousand from about two thousand the year prior. It turned out, though, that many of these tourists were as eager to eat the fish as they were to see them. Not coincidentally, the variety of exotic seafood appearing on local restaurant menus in Palau grew as well, including banned fish like Napoleon wrasse, hump-head parrot fish, and hawksbill
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