Tourism

On July 2nd, the tourist vessel, Spondylus, sank in Darwin Bay, Genovesa, with 15 passengers and a crew of 9 people on board and they were rescued by other two tourist vessels, Monserrat and Encantada.

The Galapagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Foundation have sent a team of technicians to the site and they are evaluating the environmental damage of this accident.

Authorities are in the process of recovering 300 gallons of diesel from the tanks of the sunk vessel. As of today, no major environmental damage has been reported.

Genovesa Island is located in the North side of the Galapagos Islands, seventy one nautical miles from Puerto Ayora.

Source: Galapagos National Park 

WildAid, Conservation International, the Galapagos National Park Service, and INOCAR, installed the first mooring buoy of many in November 2007 as a way to reduce impacts on underwater marine systems.

The majority of tourists visit the islands on live-aboard boats, which provide the only point of access to many visitor sites. Each boat visit, amounting to hundreds per year at the more visited sites, results in an anchor being dropped.

The use of anchors causes damage to the seafloor environment and fragile coral reefs. 

As the INOCAR permit process has been completed, we aim to install six mooring bouys at Bartolome and two near the island of Wolf in 2008.  Funding for the first part of the project has been provided by the Crown Family.  

Source: WildAid 

The proposal to build a new visitor and education complex at the Charles Darwin Research Station (CDRS) has been approved. The Galapagos Conservation Trust (GTC) is funding the phase 1 of the project.

This donation will build on work already undertaken by CDF staff and specialist volunteers, allowing the completion of phase 1 – a feasibility study for the renovation and a business and fundraising plan for the new centre. Phase 2, which requires further funding, will see the modernization taking place. It is hoped that some of this work can be completed by 2009 to coincide with the 50th anniversaries of both CDRS and GNPS and the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin. 

There are several key objectives for the new visitor experience: it should be self funding to guarantee the future of the complex; it should educate both the local community and visitors to the islands; and it should include state-of-the-art displays that leave a lasting impression. It’s expected that the new centre will be known as the Charles   Darwin Center for Galapagos. 

The complex on Santa Cruz island will be shared by the Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF) and the Galapagos National Park Service (GNPS). Some visitors may have to pay an entrance fee.

The President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, has decreed that starting on June 2oth 2008 all travelers of all citizenships will be able to enter the country without the need of a visa, and will be allowed to stay up to ninety days from the day of entrance.

This decision is based on the principle that anybody can circulate in the country without restrictions, and also as a way to promote tourism activities in Ecuador. 

A travel writer for the Los Angeles Times, Dan Neil, was interviewed yesterday, June 10, on National Public Radio about his recent article on travel to “endangered places.”

Both his article, entitled “Please Don’t Go,” and interview say that tourism is killing off fragile areas, and that “ecotourism is a contradiction in terms.”

He writes,

“The truth is, growing numbers of travelers venturing to remote and fragile places–Palawan in the Philippines, the Silver Bank in the Caribbean, Machu Picchu, the Galapagos–go with the certain knowledge that their presence makes matters worse. And they go anyway.

As a diver, I have longed to go to the Galapagos, but I know that the dive boats–albeit strictly regulated by the Ecuadorian government–are wrecking the place.

Travel conscientiously wherever–Paris, Bangkok, Banff–but when it comes to the most delicate and imperiled places, resist the urge to see them before they, or you, are gone. The fact is, most places in the world cannot withstand retail tourism. So just don’t.”

You can hear the NPR interview at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91320337

The article itself is online at:
http://www.latimes.com/classified/automotive/highway1/la-tm-800words06-2008jun01,0,2803087.story