The Galapagos Archipelago is a group of thirteen large islands and over forty islets that straddle the equator six hundred miles off the coast of Ecuador in South America. The best books available about the Galapagos are Michael H. Jackson’s, Galapagos, A Natural History and Pierre Constant’s, Galapagos Islands. On this website you can read excerpts of Michael D’Orso’s book, Plundering Paradise and a very relevant paper written by the Charles Darwin Foundation, “Galapagos at Risk”. Though the islands are directly on the equator, the climate is predominately temperate due to the influence of the Humbolt current which brings cool waters up the coast of South America from the Antarctic. The islands are of course famous for their unique flora and fauna and as the site where Charles Darwin began to develop his theory of evolution and natural selection.

We believe it is important as a prospective tourist/visitor that you have at least a small understanding of the third world realities and international/ecological pressures that exist here. Actually to do it right would take a couple/ three thesis, but we can boil it down a little.

Here’s what they don’t tell you about Galapagos:
Ninety seven percent of the eight thousand square kilometers of land mass is national park. Most of which has extremely restricted access. Tourists are only allowed to visit certain sites and most of these only if accompanied by a Pargue National Galapagos Guide (which you will have with our tours). The other three percent is privately owned by “Colonial Permanentes” (permanent colonials). There are more than twenty thousand people living on the islands, working in tourism, fishing, farming and science. Everyone in Ecuador wants to live in the Galapagos. In order to control this, in 1994 Ecuador passed laws restricting access to the Galapagos. Only colonial permanents and their heirs can own property or businesses here. And no visitor without special permission can stay more than three months. However, businesses outside the Galapagos or even Ecuador can contract and form a business with a colonial permanente owning a percent of the business for the use of their title, usually an insignificant percentage and some existing businesses at the time the law was passed were allowed to remain. Most of the cruise ships fall into this category.

The largest industry in Ecuador as a whole is petroleum, the second largest is agriculture and the third, tourism. The Galapagos Islands alone account for more than 20% of the tourism revenue. Of the total tourism dollars spent in the Galapagos less than five percent is touched by the people who live there. The rest of it ends up in the hands of foreign or mainland owned travel agencies and cruise ships. Mostly what the people here see is the tourists and tourist’s dollars passing through their small towns behind the protective glass of buses and out to cruise ships, owned largely by people or companies who have no direct connection to the Galapagos except as a source of income. This was planned. In the early nineteen sixties a study was done, a debate ensued and a conclusion reached that the best way to protect the Galapagos was to keep the tourists on boats. The boats could be easily monitored, the privately owned parts of the islands themselves would not be further developed and at the time when the native population was less than five thousand, it was a good plan.

Fast forward forty years to these islands with a population of more than twenty thousand and a tax base insufficient to maintain basic infrastructure. How did this happen? Two major factors: The first was a fishing boom that occurred when it was discovered the Japanese would pay a fortune for sea cucumbers, which we had “up the yin yang”. At that point there were no laws restricting people from immigrating here so there was a “gold rush” of fishermen from the mainland arriving here and many of them did get rich. The sea cucumbers were of course decimated. The second major factor was a period of ten years in which Ecuador had eight presidents, all pro-business meaning their own. There were plans to turn the Galapagos into a Waikiki South and indiscriminant selling of cruise tour licenses. The National Park and state government had no clear directives. The islands were full of illegal residents arriving from the continent to find better paying jobs. When I arrived here in 2002 the islands relied heavily on foreign aid to maintain and develop sewer, water and electrical needs. In the photo left is a Spanish engineer, his wife and ourselves. He spent years trying to work with local farmers and eventually successfully built a recycling plant for all the garbage generated here. Spain paid him for his work and all of the costs of the recycling trash/dump. He left here two years ago tired and disgusted with the Ecuadorian government and the people here. Now we have a new president, immensely popular, likely to serve his entire term and perhaps a second who has made the protection of the Galapagos one of his first priorities. This has brought some stability and hope for the future. He has taken on the illegal residents problem, taken steps to actually limit the number of tourists arriving here and has placed control over most of the major decisions made regarding the Galapagos in Quito. With the depletion of the commercial fisheries and stronger law enforcement to protect what is left of them, the island population now lacks a strong economic base.

The lack of a strong economic base has resulted in infrastructure problems such as poor water supply, untreated sewage being dumped directly into the sea, trash is regularly burned and economically based problems such as poaching of depleted fish species and lack of care for the immediate environment.

Land based tours by Galapagenian operators such as ourselves bring tourist dollars directly to the people who actually are the custodians of the islands, offers the people a stronger local economy in which their families can make a living, moves the economy away from the non sustainable fishing base to the sustainable base of tourism. Your tourist dollars go directly to pay local guides, hotels, cab drivers, restaurants, etc. and their taxes go to improving local infrastructure.

For the tourists, land based tours bring them in direct contact with the reality that is the Galapagos (as opposed to passing a week with other tourists in the confines of a cruise ship). Our experience is that most people visiting here prefer and are better served with a land based tour, augmented with short boat trips. We offer the option. Simply by choosing to visit the Galapagos with us, you can help bring about economic and environmental changes that benefit the people living on the islands and the future of the islands themselves.

Tid Bits:
●Here in San Cristobal, it wasn’t until 1990 that electricity was provided more than ten hours a day.
●Very few people arrive in the Galapagos by boat.
●There are no international airports here, the runways are too small.
●There are two “major” airports, one here in San Cristobal and the largest of the two is on Baltra which services Santa Cruz and Pureto Aroyo. There is a third small airport on Isabela. A company runs daily small plane flights between the three.