Updated Dec. 13, 2024 at 6 p.m.*
PUERTO AYORA — Who hasn’t dreamt of one day visiting the Galapagos Islands to discover one of the world’s most beautiful nature reserves, to swim with sea lions and turtles in crystal clear waters, and to sail among mostly uninhabited volcanic islands?
About 1,100 km off the Ecuadorian coast, this marine treasure is a biodiversity sanctuary like nowhere else in the world. But last year, the archipelago drew global attention for a major political decision.
In May 2023, Ecuador made history by signing the largest “debt-for-nature swap,” a system that reduces debt in exchange for environmental commitments. A debt of $1.628 billion was renegotiated to $656 million, with the government allocating in return the sum of $450 million over 18 years to safeguard this ecosystem, which is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
A national commitment to protect nature
Under the swap, Ecuador pledged to combat overfishing and enforce no-go zones over the coming decades, by establishing a marine police force, hiring scientists and setting up a species protection corridor between Costa Rica’s Cocos Island and the Galapagos Marine Reserve, which has grown from 138,000 km2 (53,000 square miles) to nearly 200,000 km2 (77,000 square miles) in recent years.
A few months later, in August, the government signed an agreement to halt the exploitation of an oil field in the Yasuní National Park, an indigenous land covering almost 1 million hectares in the Ecuadorian Amazon that is a unique reserve of biodiversity. Amazon conservationists hailed this as a “historic victory.”
That same year, residents of the metropolitan district of Quito voted to ban mining projects in the territory of Chocó Andino, in order to protect the environment and indigenous populations of this natural biosphere reserve. Located north of the capital and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the reserve has subsoil which is rich in gold, silver and copper ore.
Strict entry requirements
“Ecuador is ahead of the game when it comes to preserving its resources: the country has been giving itself the means to do so for decades. The first national park — the Galapagos — was established in 1959,” says Roque Sevilla, an Ecuadorian economist, businessman at the head of Grupo Futuro, environmental activist who created Fundación Natura in 1976 and former mayor of Quito.
“Since then, environmental awareness has grown in people’s minds to the point that it was introduced in the education system: since 1992, ecology has been taught in all primary schools. It’s this long-term effort that led to the signing of this historic agreement in 2023,” Sevilla says.
Focusing on quality and not quantity is at the heart of this new tourism model.
Founder of the Metropolitan Touring travel agency in 1973, Sevilla works on a daily basis to build a “new tourism” that is in contact with preserved areas, in keeping with the virtuous system set up by the Ecuadorian state. In his agency, Sevilla requires visitors to pay a carbon offset on each trip. The sum then goes into a trust fund aimed at creating and expanding the species migration corridors that connect the archipelago’s protected areas.
In addition to this cost, Ecuador charges a tourist entry fee, the cost of which doubled to 0 per person on Aug. 1. On the plane taking them to the archipelago, tourists must also sign a declaration saying they will respect biodiversity and follow the national park’s instructions. Anyone can be denied entry to the Galápagos if they don’t follow the rules. Focusing on quality and not quantity is at the heart of this new tourism model.
The world’s first green airport
Tourists land on the small island of Baltra, a desert and inhospitable place, where strict surveillance is implemented to avoid the introduction of any invasive species.
The world’s first green airport has an unusual appearance: built in 2012 from 80% recycled materials made out of old buildings, it is 100% energy self-sufficient, thanks to a mix of solar and wind power, which makes the facility look like a large ventilated shelter. There’s little or no blinding lighting and even fewer brand stores, giving the mind and the eyes some rest.
A bus then takes passengers to the Itabaca Channel, where the luggage is transferred to a boat: the sense of adventure is palpable. After crossing the inlet by ferry, we cross the verdant island of Santa Cruz, the beating heart of the Galapagos, home to hundreds of giant tortoises. We pass them, in slow motion, on the road: with their immense shells, they are the sentinels of a prehistoric world.
Along the straight road, surrounded by wide open spaces, we only see a few houses before arriving at Puerto Ayora, the main port and departure point for many cruises. The reason is that the archipelago has only 33,000 inhabitants — the first settled in the middle of the 20th century. And legislation is very strict to limit migration from the continent to the islands, where salaries are twice as high due to high-end tourism.
Residents in control
“The Constitution protects Galapagos residents in a way that is unique in the world: to be eligible to live there, you have to have arrived before 1998, or have been born there. The rest of the Ecuadorian population can’t stay on the archipelago for more than 60 days a year and don’t have the right to work, buy property or land there. Only Galapagos residents are in control of their islands; they don’t have to take lessons from anyone,” Sevilla says.
As a result, local culture is expressed in every restaurant, hotel, café or shop run by locals, like the idyllic eco-hotel Finch Bay. The menu there is based on the catch of the day, while the archipelago’s aquatic wonders are displayed in photographs on the walls. By the pool, herons come to dry their wings between the deckchairs.
Only 3% of the archipelago is accessible to tourists.
A excursion to the nearby white sand beach of Tortuga Bay is an opportunity to help collect trash and talk to students and scientists about environmental conservation and established programs.
“Since 1978, the year when the government froze all development, the archipelago has had the same number of beds (3,600), both on land and on cruise ships. The idea was to give priority to locals, to allow them to build and run small hotels (of maximum 35 beds) without direct competition,” Sevilla says.
No cruise ships
Here, there are no cruise ships full of tourists. Only one, the businessman remembers, with a capacity of 4,000 people, made a stopover years ago, flooding the small port with a sea of people.
“It was such a disaster that not only was the experience never repeated but a strict ban was immediately put in place,” Sevilla says. His travel agency manages the 24-cabin yacht La Pinta. On board, we embark to discover the treasures of the Galapagos, while being well aware that here, nature and biodiversity dictate the rules of the game.
Indeed, only 3% of the archipelago is accessible to tourists while the remaining 97% is protected territory within the national park, untouched by humans. Satellite control has been set up so that boats pass each other without ever seeing each other, docking in bays or sanctuaries preserved without any trace of other visitors.
That makes encounters with the fauna all the more exceptional: giant tortoises, iguanas with bright yellow scales, sea lions, playful dolphins, sharks and blue-footed boobies. The proximity is striking, but what’s most surprising is the perfect indifference of the animal world to our presence. Perfectly protected, the animals don’t perceive man as a threat.
The world’s best preserved national park
“When I see what’s happening in the rest of the world, in Africa as well as in Hawaii, I am very proud of what Ecuador has put in place to preserve nature and sustainably regulate the number of tourists. I don’t know of any other destination that implements such regulations,” Sevilla says.
When it comes to the debt-for-nature swap system, Belize (3 million in 2021), Barbados (0 million in 2022) and more recently Gabon (0 million in 2023) have also committed to protecting part of their natural capital. But none of these agreements are on the same scale as Ecuador’s and don’t allow for as many actions as in the Galapagos.
“Today, we regularly reach the limit of visitors that we can host; we decline requests and that’s how it is, for the good of all: nature, people and tourists themselves,” Sevilla says. Naturally, the Galapagos have been awarded the title of “best-preserved national park in the world.” This commitment should be reflected in the country’s 56 other national parks in the future.
*Originally published Oct. 04, 2024, this article was updated Dec. 13, 2024 with enriched multimedia content.
