Galapagos Islands No Longer on UNESCO List of World Heritage in Danger
Galapagos - Isla Bartolomé (© Michaël Lejeune, CC-BY-SA-2.5, Wikimedia Commons)
At the annual meeting of the UNESCO committee for World Heritage Sites, which was held this year in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, it was decided that Ecuador has improved the situation in the Galapagos Islands to such an extent that they need no longer be included on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
The Galapagos Islands were added to the List of World Heritage in Danger during the 2007 meeting for three reasons:
- Uncontrolled human population growth,
- Unregulated tourism, and
- Insufficient measures to stop invasive species from entering the islands.
For the past three years, the Ecuadorian government—working in conjunction with the Galapagos National Park Service and several other governmental and non-governmental environmental groups (including foreign NGOs such as Sea Shepherd Conservation Society), have been working hard to improve the situation in the archipelago.
The following are examples of these improvements:
- Illegal immigrants have been deported, and immigration control has increased.
- The tourist sector is better regulating the influx of a high number of tourists each year.
- Several projects are underway to minimize the transportation of invasive species on cargo and tourist boats.
- Sea Shepherd Galapagos has several running projects that contribute to a better-controlled environment, such as the Police Dog Project, Radio Communications Project, Automatic Identification System (AIS) Project, and more.
Source and more information: SeaShepherd
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