Tourism can be seen as being both good and bad for Galapagos. Some of the good parts are that the tourists bring money to the Islands and are a source of income for many Galapagueños. However, there are also bad parts. As more tourists visit the Islands, they will need more places to stay meaning that big hotels could be constructed that possibly endanger nearby wildlife. Let’s explore some of the good bits and bad bits about tourism in Galapagos.

What benefits do tourists bring to the Galapagos Islands?

One of the biggest benefits that tourism brings to the Island is money. Visitors contribute a lot of money to the economy Galapagos Islands. The Islands now generate approximately US$143 million a year through tourism. Additionally, over two thousand people are employed in the tourism industry. Economic migrants come to the Islands from the Ecuadorian mainland seeking jobs and opportunities. Many tour operators and tourists also contribute directly to the Islands, donating to conservation projects across Galapagos. The entrance fees to the National Park (US$100 per adult and US$50 for children in 2014). This tax goes towards supporting a variety of organisations across the archipelago, as can be seen in the diagram below:

A chart to show how the $100 entrance fee paid by tourists is distributed across the Islands (data from 2011)

What are the negatives to tourism for the Galapagos Islands?

In additions to the positives, tourism also has some negative impacts on Galapagos. When people first started visiting the Islands on holiday, they normally slept and ate on their cruise ships. This meant that any food and provisions needed to come from the mainland rather that the tourists helping the local economy by buying food locally. Now, so many tourists visit the islands that local farmers and fishermen cannot keep up with the requirements of the tourists. This means that food has to be imported from the mainland have to meet demand.

Increased competition amongst hotels has meant that is now cheaper to stay on the Islands than ever before (when compared to staying on a ship). When tourists stay on the Islands, this helps money to go directly to the local community. However, the increasing number of tourists choosing hotels rather than ships has meant that there are growing concerns about the amount of litter being created. As more and more people visit Galapagos, national and international investors could look to build hotels in order to get a share of the lucrative tourism industry. While the National Park areas are protected from development of this kind, the area around these areas has quickly developed with more and more buildings being constructed. Puerto Ayora in particular has seen a rapid growth in the number of cheap hotels, restaurants, souvenir shops and even high rise buildings.

An aerial shot of a rapidly expanding Puerto Ayora, the most populated town on the Islands © Heidi Snell

What do the tourists think?

Since 1990, tourist satisfaction rankings of the wildlife and beauty of the Islands have steadily decreased. More and more, visitors are increasingly saying that they find the Islands surprisingly crowded with tourists. The official guidelines for visitor numbers were set at 12,000 a year in 1968 when the Galapagos Island National Park was first established. However, visitor numbers rose above 12,000 in the 1980s and the limit was raised to 25,000. In 2015, almost ten times as many tourists are now visiting the Islands compared the limit placed over 30 years ago.

Over the years, what tourists want from their holidays has also changed. In recent years, tourists have been more drawn to activity-based holidays. In Galapagos, this demand has seen the rapid development of horseback riding, camping, snorkelling, sport fishing and kayaking activities. However, often little research is done into how such activities may impact on the wildlife. Sadly, not all tourists or tour operators recognise their responsibility to the environment they are visiting.

Poorly maintained ships can contaminate seawater with paint flecks and engine oil. More recently, there have been worries that waste water could be flowing into the ocean and even into drinking water supplies. What impact has tourism had on migration to the Islands? As the popularity of the Islands has grown, so has the number of Ecuadoreans migrating from the mainland to fill the jobs tourism creates. Between 1974 and 1998 the archipelago has seen a 375% increase in population which has had a number of impacts.

We can find many special ecosystems across the Galapagos Islands. With so much unique animal and plant life, the Islands need to be carefully managed to protect them.

What is Conservation?

Conservation involves direct action by people to protect nature and the environment. There are many different actions that are contained within ‘conservation’ such as preservation, protection and restoration.

Why is Conservation important for Galapagos?

The unique species of Galapagos are one of the main attractions for visitors to the Islands. These visitors bring money to Islands by buying products and food on the Islands as well as paying to stay in hotels. However, this has not always been the case.

Before the Galapagos Islands were colonised by humans, the wildlife on the Islands developed and evolved without the influence of outside forces. Over thousands of years, plants and animals formed their own unique ecosystems. With the arrival of humans to the Islands, new and expanding settlements have meant that some habitats have been lost. A larger number of people on the Islands have meant there is an increased demand for resources such as food. This caused an increase in fishing, use of wood and more land was changed into farmland to meet the needs of the growing human population.

Puerto Ayora © Heidi Snell

Protection

A large part of the Galapagos economy depends on tourism. However, if tourism is not carefully managed and planned, there can be problems. In the past, tourists have accidentally brought non-native species with them to the Islands. Even a tiny seed lodged in their shoe can end up growing in Galapagos which can lead to problems for the native species. You can find out more about sustainable tourism in our next chapter.

San Cristobal © Just Janza

In 1990, the Galapagos Inspection and Quarantine System (SICGAL) was established to inspect cargo from ships and to check bags and luggage belonging to tourists for any signs of non-native organisms that might damage the delicate Galapagos ecosystem.

Restoration

Invasive species have also damaged the habitats of many Galapagos species beyond repair. Scientists believe that the introduction of feral goats to Pinta island destroyed the vegetation that the local giant tortoise species needed to eat to survive. Researchers found Lonesome George wandering around on his own. He was the last known giant tortoise to come from Pinta island. Sadly, attempts to restore the Pinta tortoise population did not work. But there have been various other successful species restoration projects, such as the restoration of land iguanas to Baltra. You can learn more about the fate of Galapagos giant tortoises in our Tortoise Trackers chapter.

Galapagos Land Iguana © Les Lee

Preservation

One of the most damaging invasive species to have arrived in Galapagos is the parasitic fly called Philornis downsi. These flies lay their eggs in the nests of Galapagos finches. One particular species of Galapagos finch has been pushed to the edge of extinction by Philornis downsi. The larvae of these parasitic flies feed on the hatchlings of mangrove finches. With less than one hundred individuals remaining in the world, it was essential to take steps to preserve this species. A series of organisations have been working together to boost the population numbers of mangrove finches. To do this, they take eggs from the nests and transport them to specialised laboratories where the baby finches are hand-reared. So far, scientists have successfully raised 23 mangrove finch chicks. You can find out more about invasive species in our Life on the Islands chapter.

A mangrove finch © Michael Dvorak

An economically sustainable society is one where fair and efficient use of resources means people can earn money. It means the economy of the country, region or town will be able to support itself and people within that society will experience neither extremes of poverty or wealth.

What is the economy and why is it important?

In Galapagos, each year hundreds of thousands of tourists from around the world visit. When they visit they pay money for food and for services (such as a hotel where to sleep or tour guide). On the Islands, many people have jobs in the tourism industry. The tourists bring money to the islands to spend and the money. The people on the Islands then use the money to buy other goods (like food) and services. This exchange of money for goods and services is called the economy.

The Galapagos Islands are a part of the Republic of Ecuador. Ecuador is a country in South America that is neighboured by Colombia and Peru. While the majority of Ecuador’s money is made by selling goods such as oil, in Galapagos, tourism generates more than half of all money in Galapagos and nearly half of the population work in the tourism industry.

The Ecuadorian economy (adapted from Haussmann & Hidalgo et al., 2011)

What is economic sustainability?

So far, we have been talking about sustainability in terms of making sure that people are able to have a good quality of life without negatively affecting the environment (which could stop future generations from also having a good quality of life). Economic sustainability also has future generations in mind. At the moment, a lot of the industry in western countries is based on consumption of goods. Factories often aim to produce as many products as they can as cheaply as possible without considering what happens to the products when they are no longer useful. To make our electricity, the majority of countries still rely on burning coal which releases poisonous chemicals into the air. Once all the coal is gone, it will not be possible to generate electricity in that way, therefore it is not sustainable. A sustainable economy is one that is based on re-using materials rather than relying on sourcing new materials (such as mining coal from the ground or using oil to make plastic).

What is a circular economy?

A circular economy is another way of thinking about how we can create a more sustainable economy. In a circular economy, recycled resources are put back into the manufacturing process. In this way, we can avoid harming the environment (where the raw materials come from) and this can also be a way for companies to save money too.

Case Study: Alberto Granja – Recycling in the Galapagos Islands

After being a fisherman for twenty five years, Alberto Granja began to find that marine pollution was starting to affect the size and number of fish he was catching. Most of the pollution was oil from the ships visiting Galapagos. At the time, oil was commonly found in the waters around the Islands, as there was no way of preventing its spread or stopping it leaking into the sea (or being dumped there).

Herbert Frei, the founder of Pikaia Lodge, had also noticed the negative affect pollution was having on his business and on wildlife. Together, the two men developed a project where the oil was scooped off the surface of the water, burnt at high temperatures and then used to make new fuels. With the support of the Galapagos National Park, the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Charles Darwin Foundation, Granja started to collect oil from the ocean surface using a motorboat and his family home as a storage facility.

Alberto Granja © James Frankham (WWF-Canon)

The scheme became very successful. The Galapagos National Park made it compulsory for all vessels to recycle their oil with Alberto rather than dump it. This meant that Alberto would need to process around 16 thousands litres of used oil each month. Granja had to move his company to a new warehouse and began transporting the oil to a glass-making factory on the mainland in Ecuador. As of 2014, Alberto has collected over two million litres of oil and has helped to reduce the marine pollution in the area.

Oil recycling on the docks © Relugal