News

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: July 3, 2010

Filed at 6:00 p.m. ET

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuadorean officials say a tour boat has capsized off the Galapagos Islands, killing a Danish man on board.

Galapagos National Park spokeswoman Vanessa Garcia says a powerful wave flipped the small wooden vessel Friday night.

The body of 61-year-old Nils Aarsoe was found Saturday. The Danish Consulate confirmed his death, but could not give details on his hometown.

Garcia says six other tourists and five crew members were rescued and in good condition. The passengers included Aarsoe’s wife and daughter, two Irish travelers and two Israelis.

IGTOA will try to find out more and post it here.

IGTOA donated $10,000 to the Scalesia Foundation for a pilot project in environmental education at the Tomas de Berlanga School.

Thanks to the support of IGTOA,130 students and their respective families, 25 teachers and 100 people of diverse audiences were exposed to fundamental environmental education concepts, fundamental for a Galapagos’ citizen: efficient water use, trash and recycling, fertile soil and organic products, marine life and its relation with land environments, between others.

The TBS started a pilot project for critical thinking using the scientific method and applied to environmental issues that were thought, should be part of the knowledge of global citizens that live in a World Natural Heritage Site and National Park like the Galapagos Islands.

Methods

As part of a inter institutional effort, Scalesia Foundation and TBS´s teachers worked with scientists of other local institutions in order to identify topics assigned to each grade according to curricular structure. A team of teachers, educational experts and conservation volunteers worked in the designed of a program for each grade. The implementation phase took place between April 2009 and January 2010, according to Galapagos´ Academic Calendar.

During the implementation phase, TBS’s students, between 4 and 12 years old, devoted two hours per week to explore and implement short scientific experiments that triggered environmental awareness and the use of science as a practical tool to understand and generate solutions for local environmental challenges.

Each academic year at TBS was assigned a topic of environmental importance according to the academic curriculum. Students worked on experiments as well as discussions, debates, and critical thinking exercises focused on awakening the recognition of their role as part of a specific environmental challenge and how changes in daily routine and consumer practices can turn an individual into an active contributor.

Results

One hundred and thirty students have: (a) used the scientific method and critical thinking exercises to understand global and local environmental problems and (b) they have explored and discovered how their daily life practices can become part of local and global solutions to environmental challenges. Annex 1 includes pictures of the process of implementation.

Through the project the school’s community has been exposed to a more personal analysis of the World’s and Galapagos’ environmental challenges. Twenty teachers, one hundred thirty students and their parents have been empowered to become active contributors of a solution.

Teachers at TBS were trained and were able to successfully implement the pilot project.

The Environmental Education Program was finished and implemented during academic year 2009-2010. The Program is the base over which TBS is building additional initiatives. Annex 2 describes some of the initiatives that are now taking place at TBS.

The Huffington Post has announced a new series called Our Oceans. They will “be bringing you in-depth coverage of all matters of challenges and threats facing oceans. Climate change is a core issue that the Green page focuses on, but many marine experts argue that the health of the seas is just as critical to the fate of our planet as the rising temperatures caused by climate change.”

Huffington Post’s Green Editor, Katherine Goldstein, writes:

“In addition to creating our own content and inviting our esteemed bloggers to write on the subject, I’ll also be bringing you exclusive online media coverage of Mission Blue, TED Prize Winner Sylvia Earle’s wish for the oceans.

Part of her prize is that she’s granted any wish - hers is to bring activists, scientists, experts and thought-leaders together to educate them and the larger public about the challenges facing our oceans. Her 5-day conference in the Galapagos islands has the goals of raising awareness and rallying political will to create a worldwide system of marine protected areas.

HuffPost Green readers can expect photo and video coverage of both the conference and the nature expeditions, Q and A’s, and blogs from participants. We will also have a Mission Blue twitter page as a one-stop shop to find out everything that’s happening with the TED conference and Twitter feeds from ocean conservation groups and news organizations.”

Join in the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag #missionblue

The tourist yacht, Alta, ran around while entering the harbor at Puerto Ayora, on the southern coast of Santa Cruz Island. Sixteen Canadian passengers and eight crew members were evacuated from the ship with no injuries reported. There were no reports of leakage from the 3,500 gallons of fuel on board. The yacht remains on the reef, while its fuel tanks are being drained. The boat is owned by Quasar Nautica Expeditions.

Associated Press report

Ecuadorian press report

The Ecuadorean government has authorized LAN as the third carrier to serve Baltra airport in the Galapagos Islands.

The airline’s Ecuadorean subsidiary announced today it will launch flights to the Galapagos in September. It has traffic rights for the Quito-Guayaquil-Baltra route, and will initially operate one daily flight.

Aerogal currently operates nine weekly flights on the Quito-Guayaquil-Baltra route while TAME operates eight weekly flights on the same routing, plus six weekly non-stop flights between Quito and Baltra.

Source:  Flightglobal