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San Cristobal, Galapagos Nov. 11, 2008, comments on the news and updates on the news in Galapagos.
ABC News had an article this week by Taylor Behrendt describing the wonders of the fauna here and the need to protect them.
Examiner.com had a similar article by Rita Cook who stated "A Galapagos Island cruise is really the best way to see the islands…" and went on to extol the virtues of Jacuzzis on the cruise ships and offered a link to a web site that markets them. Travel writers are an interesting breed of people. A few are extremely perceptive and insightful. They generally have very little time to come to their conclusions about a destination. The majority seldom look beyond surface appearances, often relying on the opinions of those they come into contact with to form the basis of their articles.
In the telegraph.co.uk, the "grown up gapper", reporter Ruth Holiday is finally looking a little deeper into the culture she is surrounded with. I expect next week she'll be writing about how in 1995 the local fishermen attacked the National Park headquarters, angered at new fishing regulations.
National News:
Reuters reported the choice of our president, Rafael Correa to expand mining operations to help diversify the oil-dependant economy. This is somewhat at odds with his environmental protections policies, but there are always trade offs and he has shown a unique ability to balance the needs of his country.
Here In Galapagos:
The water temperature changed five degrees this week heralding the coming of the warm season and the Christmas Holidays. My wife unpacked our fake Christmas tree.
San Cristobal, Galapagos Nov. 4, 2008, comments on the news and updates on the news in Galapagos.
The Telegraph.co.uk has the continuing articles of Ruth Holiday, "The Grown Up Gapper", as she takes up here volunteer position teaching English on Isabela. Again, her observations seem pretty accurate. We're waiting for her to come around to some conclusions about local economies, tourists, cruise ships and large international travel agencies. We have faith that she’ll get there.
The Ethical Traveler had yet another article about the need balance economic and environmental concerns in the Galapagos, this one written by Tania Campbell which as most of these types of articles fails to mention the possibility of handling this problem from the supply side with the education of possible visitors before they make their choices in their manner of a travel here.
Bloomberg.com reported that Ecuador's Economy Minister, Pedro Paez Perez stated in a TV interview that our economy would grow by 5% next year even with the global financial crises. It was reported in the same article that Standard and Poor's Lisa Shineller stated that number was not likely, but that their forecast for Ecuador was a 3 growth in 2009, still not a bad number relatively.
Here on San Cristobal:
Ingala (the government branch that enforces the laws regarding who can live, come or vacation here), The Charles Darwin Foundation and The Galapagos National Park invited us to attend a presentation they were all giving together about the need to work together toward a common goal. The presentation focused on the importance of realizing that the socio-economics of managing the people living in a World Heritage Site has as much importance as managing the wild life and enforcing regulations because the two go hand in hand. You wouldn't think this would be a new perspective in the Galapagos, but it is. There were maybe two hundred people there, all the who's whos, the governor, mayor, heads of the three above mentioned agencies etc. and of course many of our friends. I don't know if we were the only "commercial" (as in working company) invited, but we were the only one present.
San Cristobal, Galapagos Oct. 28, 2008, comments on the news and updates on the news in Galapagos.
ABC News Travel Section: An article by Jefferey Kofman titled, Invasion of the Tourists: Journey to the Galapagos Islands talks a lot about the wonders of the Galapagos, but very little about the subject of the title of his article. He quotes Felipe Cruz, current head of the Charles Darwin Foundation here in the Galapagos as saying it isn’t the country of Ecuador that has let the islands down, but rather the world. Kofman fails to explore or follow up this novel idea. I would imagine if he had it would have led to an examination of the international tourism industry and the part that travelers choices play in local ecologies and economies. He also has some inaccurate numbers. The population of the entire Galapagos is around 30 thousand, not the island of Santa Cruz alone and the number of tourist who entered the Galapagos last year was 110,448, not the 140,000 he quoted. These numbers are readily available from "Ingala" (the government agency in charge of who comes and goes from the Galapagos).
Telegraph.co.uk has an apparently ongoing article about the experience a writer is having here in the Galapagos. The writer, Ruth Holiday had just made it to Baltra/Santa Cruz and is on her way to Isabela where we will presumably get the next installment. She is already quite impressed. I’m looking forward to her next article. She writes well and isn’t too far off base with most of her observations.
Every week there are a number of press releases issued by international travel companies offering new tours here in the Galapagos, many of them following our lead of land based tours with the exceptions that their tours are offered because there is a demand and not for ecological reasons and these are “package” tours brought to you by companies whose main interest in the islands is as a place to make money.
San Cristobal, Galapagos Oct. 21, 2008, comments on the news and updates on the news in Galapagos.
The Santa Barbara Independent had a nice article on Gabrielle Johnson who works for the Charles Darwin Foundation. She has been willing to give her time to make dinner presentations to our groups. It is nice to have her on the island.
The article I commented on last week by Chris Kraul of the Los Angeles Times was reprinted again in the Chicago Tribune.
Market Watch and International Business Times, NY, have an article on how Toyota is sponsoring a trip for thirty grade school teachers to come to the Galapagos. They have them on a three day boat trip that goes to two islands that no one is allowed to visit, Espanola and Fernandina. Perhaps the park is allowing them. Where they might really get a lesson is if they spent time in one of the Pueblos.
The McGill Daily "cold and distant since 1911" has an article about how scientists discovered genes from an extinct species of giant tortoise in an existing species and plan on bringing extinct species back to life by selective breeding.
San Cristobal News
The thirty applicants who passed the exam and will take the course to be National Park Guides were thrilled, while the two-hundred and twenty who didn't were not. The tests were sent to Quito to be graded and only the results were returned. When some of the students asked to see their tests and they weren't available, it generated a lot of animosity and suspicion about the “grading” process.
Oct. 14, 2008 San Cristobal, Galapagos Ecuador, Comments on the week’s news about the Galapagos and the news here in Ecuador
On Oct. 13 Asap news ran an article title "Ecuador attempts to rein in Galapagos tourism boom". The author stated that "Over the last few decades thousands of workers left mainland Ecuador for the lure of jobs in the tourist industry in the Galapagos working as cleaners, maids, shop assistants and waiters." He had been referring to illegal immigrants. The Galapagos immigration law passed in 1997. Up until that point, any Ecuadorian citizen could have immigrated legally to the Galapagos. We did have a legal immigration boom shortly before the law was passed brought on not by an expanding tourism business, but by the sudden appearance of a market for sea cucumbers in Japan. The islands were flooded with fishermen from the continent who came to cash in on this "gold rush". Many of them actually did as they decimated the sea cucumber population. There is still to this day a thriving poaching business praying on these creatures.
In a related and more informative article written by Chris Kraul of the Los Angeles Times that was published this week in the Houston Chronicle is a quote by our Minister of the Environment stating that the answer to many of our problems here lies in "the development of a new tourism model". We are proud to be one of the companies pioneering this new model.
The Ashbury Park Press had an interesting article about the renovation of “Old Town” (Colonial) Quito. Only a few years ago we would not send our clients down there nor have them stay in hotels located there because of the crime, grime, drugs and prostitution that proliferated there. Now, it is one of the highlights of our tours and practically all of them spend a night or two there.
Today two hundred and fifty applicants to train to be Galapagos National Park Guides will receive the news if they made the cut for the thirty available positions.
ABC news published an article Oct. 1 titled "Galapagos Islands Face Greatest Threat: Man" For those of us that live here, this is not news. While awareness of a problem is the first step to finding solutions, that is all it is. This particular article was succinct and mostly accurate though managed to skip a number of salient points. The growth in the population here first began with a fishing boom, harvesting sea cucumbers. It has continued to grow because of lack of government control. In the past ten years we have had eight presidents, the previously seven can be described as "pro-business", meaning their own. There were plans to turn the Galapagos into Waikiki south, the indiscriminant selling of licenses to cruise ships and a complete lack of control of immigration. Today we have a government that appears as if it will survive its term and perhaps a second and has put the preservation of the Galapagos as a top priority. The article mentioned the restricting of cruise ship licenses to eighty-four as a measure to reduce tourism, but failed to mention an increase in the Park entrance fee to $200 and a plan to enforce a minimum of seven days for tour lengths. Over the past couple of years three and four day tours have become popular with the cruise ship industry. While pointing out there are no sophisticated sewer treatment plants on the islands, it fails to point out that the cruise ships dump raw sewage directly into the water nightly, burn fossil fuels twenty-four hours a day and routinely rip up reefs with their anchors. The article does not offer any advice or solutions. Our efforts at Come To Galapagos have been to try to solve the problem from the supply side and to educate visitors about the consequences of their choices of how they travel.
Sept. 30, 2008 San Cristobal, Galapagos Ecuador
This week, The Washington Post’s “Leftnews” has an article about the referendum rewriting the Ecuadorean constitution which was approved by the voters on Sunday. They incorrectly stated that the new constitution allows same sex marriages. That was included in one draft, but was dropped along with recognizing Quichua as a national language.
The new constitution does provide the environment specific rights normally associated with individuals.
Probably the most important aspect of it is the centralization of control over states rights within the Federal government. This means for the Galapagos that the important decisions regarding environmental care, human development and tourist access will be made in Quito. This may turn out to be a good thing for the Galapagos. Up to this point decisions regarding tourist access and development as opposed to environmental care have been predominantly made by people who profit directly or indirectly from tourist access and development.
Sept. 22, 2008 San Cristobal, Galapagos, Ecuador
Galapagos in the News this week. Comments from a resident.
The Times Online, reported yesterday that the Galapagos National Park is going to double the entrance fee next year. Which is correct, though they might have reported that months ago. The interesting thing about the article is that it goes on to explain that the increase fees are “one of a series of measures introduced by the Ecuadorean government to limit tourism to the fragile archipelago”. “The series of measures” has not been fully outlined yet as we are waiting to see if a national referendum is passed next week. This referendum has to do with re-writing the Ecuadorian constitution. If it passes the Federal government will take far more direct control of the islands than it has in the past. One of the other “measures” may be to require tours of the islands to last at least seven days.
Trans World News has an article promoting animal photography workshops in locations throughout the world, one of them being the Galapagos. From our perspective photographers tend to be more ecologically conscious than other visitors and promoting that kind of visitor is far better for the islands than some of the other more questionable activities that are or have been promoted like sport fishing, surfing, kayaking even rock climbing and hunting have been tried.
The New Scientist, in an article explaining the ecological virtues of concentrating tourists, incorrectly states that the Galapagos limits the number of visitors. They did put a limit once and the first year it was in place more than twenty thousand tourists over the limit arrived.
PR Web, a “press release newswire” has a release by Wild Life Adventures of California apparently now are offering upscale/high end vacations to various new destinations, the Galapagos being one of them. I’ve never heard of them, but suspect they’ve contracted with some of the cruise ships.
The Open Press, another press release outlet published a release by “Adventures Within Reach” who are “Now Offering Galapagos for the Holidays”. I’m not sure who Adventures Within Reach would negotiate with to own the Holidays, but who ever it is, I hope they get a title report before they make a trade for the Galapagos.
Travel Blackboard, apparently a newsletter about travel has an article proclaiming the delights of a ten day tour that ”encapsulates” the best of Ecuador. In a ten day tour participants see the rain forests, the volcanoes, the Indian markets and the Galapagos. You could probably see all of that in seven days. If you’re going to tour that way, why waste the extra three days?
The World Aeronautic Press Agency, in its news report had an article about the remodeling of the airport on Baltra. They are expanding the airport and repairing the runway, however it will be built with natural materials and fueled by wind and solar energy.
August 26, 2008 San Cristobal, Galapagos Ecuador
A man wrote an insightful letter to the editor of the New York Times, commenting on an article “Risking Galapagos”. His main point was that while the article talked about balancing tourism and conservation, it failed to take into account the plight of the mostly disenfranchised inhabitants, “the true guardians” of the islands as we like to refer to the local populace. He also comments on our president’s referendum which will be voted on next month. See below in the “News From Here”.
- The Fort Mills Times has an article about a very happy retired zoologist who was able to visit the Galapagos. He took a cruise tour and his comment was, small rooms, but the food was good. They do tend to over feed on the cruise tours. People spend so much time on those boats rather than actually on the islands and there isn’t much else to do besides eat.
- The Wall Street Journal writes about how Aerogal, one of the two airlines flying to the Galapagos and the airline we use exclusively for our clients was the first airline to be awarded the “Smart Voyager” certification for its efforts toward operating in as environmentally responsible manner as possible.
- The Barbados Advocate published a rant by David Harper about how our greed is destroying the planet. It is hard not to agree with him and understandable why he would be so angry, but as often happens with these kinds of pieces, they preach to the choir and turn away possible converts with excessive bombast.
The News Here:
-The National Park is commencing two courses for Galapagos National Park Guides. One here in San Cristobal and one on Isabela. It is a three month very intensive course and there is a lot of competition to get into them. They will turn out four hundred new guides. This doesn’t mean that they will all instantly have work. Out of that four hundred, we’ll probably train three or four new guides to work with us.
Everyone is talking about the referendum of our president that will be voted on next month. With regards to the Galapagos, he wants to put more control over what happens here in Quito. The referendum will very likely not pass here. I can see pros and cons. It would be as if the federal government of the US wanted to pass a referendum reducing the power of the fifty states to self govern. In the case of the Galapagos, I’m not entirely sure that it isn’t such a bad idea. In Ecuador the president already appoints the Governors of each state. Our problems have largely been created by the revolving door of presidents that have passed through over recent years.
August 19, 2008 San Cristobal, Galapagos Ecuador
According to the Orlando Sentinel and The Bradenton Hearld, AP Adventures, a subsiderary of Disney is adding eight new destinations to its list of family tours and among them is the Galapagos. Yes, Disneyland Galapagos will become a reality in 2009. Almost anyone who has been here and practically everyone who lives here will be equally disappointed to hear this. Disney would not begin offereing tours here unless they felt they could make some money and that somehow they have a right to do this in the Galapagos. They are not unlike many other travel agencies. Google "Vacations Galapagos" and try to find a Galapagos owned and operated company. They do exist.
The other news this week is the Government of Ecuador has insisted that second largest bank in the country start paying taxes. The bank, Bank of Pichincha one of the largest in Ecuador has stated that it has never made a profit.
August 11, 2008 San Cristobal, Galapagos Ecuador
The news coming out of the Google Galapagos news alert this week is mostly blog entries about people’s trips to the Galapagos. Discover magazine has one, Science Blogs another.
The Jackson Sun has an article about a woman who visited and thought she was sitting just three feet away from a seal, turned out it was a sea lion.
The Stamford Advocate writes about concerns of certain members of the Board of Education regarding international field trips to places like the Galapagos for high school students. I’m with them, but for different reasons. These groups of high school kids tend to be so large and economy packaged that I can’t imagine their fondest memories of the Galapagos are anything other than the puppy love kisses they exchanged when their tour leader wasn’t looking.
The Times Online has an article on “How to do Ecuador in Comfort in a Week” which is basically by not going to the Galapagos. I agree with them too. People need a minimum of nine days of travel to make a trip to the Galapagos “in Comfort”.
The news from here is Ingala (the government agency in charge of immigration and visitors to the Galapagos) has initiated a requirement that all persons working here in the Galapagos who are not native Galapagenans, must take a course about the conservation of the islands. This impacts many who have been here for years and also any new arrivals. Personally, I think they ought to require the course for anyone entering the Galapagos whose stay will not be over seen by a Galapagos National Park guide.
The problem with the fuel for the small airplanes has been solved. Apparently the problem had to do with the Ecuadorian Government’s seizure of the company who supplied the fuel to the small airlines. The company was owned by a family who several years back, closed their bank and left the country with millions of other people’s money. The government is in the process of seizing and selling off the assets of this family to help reimburse those who lost money. The difficulty was with keeping the company functioning as the government tried to sell it, rather than any shift in economic policy.
July 28, 2008 San Cristobal, Galapagos Ecuador
The big news this week in the papers regarding the Galápagos is that Lonesome George may soon be a daddy (China Daily, Pittspurgh Post Gazette, ABC news, Times Online, American Chronicle, amNew York and CBBC newsround). Each of the Galapagos Islands has or had a slight variation of Giant Tortoise, even separate volcanoes on the same island have variations. Some of them have become extinct. Lonesome George is the last of his kind from Isla Pinta and they have been trying unsuccessfully to mate him with another tortoise to continue his line for years, had practically given up. Now one of his mates has laid some eggs and so everyone is celebrating though they won’t know if the eggs are fertile for some weeks still. Tortoises are slow, long living creatures as opposed to ourselves who do things in their own time. George probably just wasn’t quite ready to commit to fatherhood on our time schedule.
In a move apparently aimed at ending government subsidies of some businesses, the Ecuadorian government had virtually ceased selling airplane fuel to small airline companies here in Ecuador. They had previously received this fuel at a discounted cost. Almost all petroleum products here are sold at a discounted price, a government subsidy to the people and businesses of Ecuador. Gas for cars costs $150 a gallon. The cessation of selling air plane fuel had the immediate effect of grounding these airlines. Here in the Galapagos this means for the time being at least, people can not fly between the islands. The small plane company here is rumored to be negotiating the purchase of air line fuel from a Columbian company.
July 22, 2008 San Cristobal, Galapagos Ecuador
The news about the Galapagos printed in the US and Canada this week featured such items as a dancer making her way around the world, stopping in the Galapagos (Reuters), a man talking about the ingeniousness of visiting something else in Ecuador besides the Galapagos, 'as long as he was down here' (Pittsburgh Post), A travel company tour leader expounding the virtues of a Galapagos tour (National Post, Toronto) These travel company tour leaders are something like a guide taking you into Nordtroms and receiving all the commission from the items that you buy yet do not have the responsibility of maintaining the store nor merchandise. There was a piece in the Washington Post about "Best Travel Bargains". Apparently one of the cruise ships wasn’t entirely booked for one week this August so they’re trying to pack it with "economy" offerings.
The real news here in the Galapagos this week is that the National Park has stated it will go ahead with plans to double the park entrance fee to $200 and that it will force cruise tours to offer cruises no shorter than seven days. The increase in the Park entrance fee will double their budget and perhaps dissuade people from making a trip here for only a couple of days. The Park’s budget would not be adequate if it were ten times what it is now. The cruise tours have been offering shorter and shorter cruises which has resulted in an estimated 25% increase in the number of passengers/visitors and an estimated 15% increase in profit.
The other news is that they are planning on shutting down the airport in Baltra for one year in order to make repairs on the runway. The last time this occurred all of the traffic to the Galapagos flowed through San Cristobal for three months. Seven planes a day and all of the cruise ships coming and going from the harbor here. It was thought that this would create an economic boom for the local populace, however the net result was a boom only for the taxi drivers and enter island airline and small boat shuttles to and from Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz.
July 18, 2008 San Cristobal, Galapagos Ecuador
Yesterday our relatively new president, Rafael Correa arrived for meetings this weekend with Assembly leaders and local government officials.
This morning on the “Early News” of the local TV station he announced a plan to levy a new tax on all tourism services of 12% of their gross revenue and the restructuring of the existing government agencies to both streamline a confusing and often conflicting bureaucracy and place more direct control over local policy in Quito.
This is yet another of various “radical” steps he has been taking as he attempts to reform a country and political system that has been rated as one of the ten most corrupt in the world.
Our perspective as Come to Galapagos, LLC (USA) and Come to Galapagos CIA.LTDA (Ecuador) is that this is primarily aimed at the cruise ship industry as a way of both expanding a tax base for the country and a short cutting of the “pork barrel buffet” of corruption which receives revenue from the Galapagos, but does neither pay to protect them nor support the local economy. We suspect no one here will be happy answering to Quito about our problems. We acknowledge that locally we have been challenged trying to accomplish things with the above mentioned “confusing and conflicting bureaucracy” and our own internal confusing and conflicting alliances, however we suspect President Correa will find it equally if not more challenging trying to do the same from Quito.
It should be noted that President Correa taught at the University here. One of his first actions as president was to put the care of the Galapagos near the top of his agenda and that it is quite likely that he will be the first president (of eight) to serve his entire term of office (four years) in Ecuador in more than ten years. The stability of this alone with regards to consistent policy in the Galapagos, however leftist his views may be in our minds, is worth supporting.
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