By Lester A. Picker , Special to The Baltimore Sun|December 14, 2008
Magical is the most overused word when writing about the Galapagos, those magical islands off the coast of Ecuador. Oops! Sorry, but there really is something about these islands that gets under your skin. One visit and you're hooked. Two visits morph you into a passionate advocate.
On my last visit, I tried to figure out just what is so alluring about the Galapagos. Compared with the lush majesty of the Hawaiian Islands, they rank a distant second. They don't boast four-diamond restaurants or five-star hotels, and there is not a shopping mega-mall or multiplex anywhere.
What does make them so special is that they are situated directly on the Pacific equator. Deep-ocean currents well up all around them, bringing tons of nutrients to support plankton, fish, sea lions, humpback whales, sea birds and iguanas. Unfortunately, the very wildlife that makes the Galapagos so attractive may be its undoing. Today, more than 148,000 visitors flock to the islands yearly, more than double the number that visited in 2000.
This influx of tourists has been responsible for a corresponding spike in residents, both legal and illegal, who cater to the tourist trade. The environmental stresses associated with that level of human activity - think housing, roads, pollution - have brought this fragile ecosystem to imminent crisis, with UNESCO recently adding the archipelago to its endangered list.
When locally owned and run boats handled all tourism, there were fewer problems. But the advent of mega-ships, each unloading hundreds of tourists at a time, exacerbated the environmental damage. A side effect of the overpopulation is that marine stocks are being overfished, prompting restrictive government regulations. In January, 53 sea lions were slaughtered. Suspicion for the act has fallen on local fishermen upset with those new measures.
Concerns over the fate of the Galapagos have prompted the tourism industry to band with Galapagos National Park administrators and scientists to develop sustainable eco-tourism standards. It is now possible to be an eco-conscious Galapagos tourist.
First, and most important, choose a locally owned and operated smaller boat, one that holds 10 to 30 tourists, with 20 being the ideal number. Such boats have far less impact on the environment and can place you on island locations that the larger ships cannot access.
