Is there trouble in paradise? The perspectives of Galapagos community leaders on managing economic development and environmental conservation through ecotourism policies and the Special Law of 1998

Abstract

In 1998, the government of Ecuador enacted a special law with the goal of both promoting environmental preservation and economic development in the Galapagos Islands. The reforms in the Special Law of 1998 were sweeping. Among other things it created the Galapagos Marine Preserve, limited the ability of immigrants arriving from mainland Ecuador to secure employment, restricted fishing to local residents only, and increased the institutional power of regulatory organisations like the Galapagos National Park. This article presents the results of a series of qualitative interviews conducted in July 2011 with local Island leaders on their support for the Special Law of 1998 in general and in regards to its implementation. The interviews also asked the respondents' opinions on a wider set of ecotourism policies and issues. The findings indicate that generally there is a great amount of support for the law amongst leaders, but there is a strong consensus that the Special Law has not been implemented effectively. The reasons behind these failures of implementation are multifaceted, but include: the weak and fragmented status of Galapagos institutions, a lack of professionalised leadership, leadership which engages in politicised decision-making, and, finally, failures to enforce unpopular provisions of the Special Law.

Keywords:

• economic development
• sustainable development
• Galapagos Islands
• balancing
• conservation
• growth
• ecotourism
• tourism

Notes

The Galapagos Islands are a province of Ecuador and form an archipelago west of continental Ecuador. The islands consist of 7880 km2 of land situated in approximately 45,000 km2 of ocean that rests atop a moving plate known as the Nazca plate, as well as an area of intense heat referred to as a hotspot. The archipelago consists of 18 islands and 107 islets that all vary in size, population (if inhabited), and economic components.

By sustainable development the authors refer mainly to the generalised concept of promoting economic growth in a manner that does not exhaust non-renewable resources or endanger the environment (Parris & Kates, 2003). Ecotourism, the primary topic of this paper, is a specific strategy, which carries out the goals of sustainable development.

However, tourism revenues alone cannot explain all the growth of the local economies in the Galapagos. Quantitative economic analysis by Taylor et al. (2009, p. 2) shows that other sectors of the economy such as government spending, local commercial fishing, and spending by conservation agencies are beginning to emerge as key drivers of development.

The national government of Ecuador introduced a ‘super wage’ and a subsidy for plane travel for flights between the Islands and mainland Ecuador for native residents. Island residents also receive a significant gasoline subsidy. This ‘special’ treatment makes living in the Galapagos more attractive than living in the Mainland from the economic perspective of most Ecuadorian citizens – which then causes economic repercussions due to high levels of migration to the Islands.

In the interviews conducted by the authors many leaders expressed a desire to further evolve tourism patterns to encourage longer stays of 10–12 days directly on the islands, which would result in more revenue being spent locally than either cruise ship tourism or those engaging in the aforementioned island-hopping behaviours.

Interviews were not conducted on Isabela because the goal of this research was to analyse current and past conflicts around the struggle to balance conservation and economic development. Although Isabela, like all the inhabited islands, is a part of the overall Galapagos economy, its economic contribution is not nearly as large as Santa Cruz and San Cristobal. However, future research will need to include Isabela because it is the site of a new airport, which will increase its role as a location that must meet the challenge of sustainable development in the future.

Floreana and Baltra are considered very sparsely populated. Although these two islands do have some tourist activity, as they are home to several notable exotic species and fauna, most of the economic transactions based on those tourist activities occur on the Islands where interviews were conducted.

Two expert scholars – one in South America and one in North America – had input on our list of leaders to serve as a check to ensure leaders with institutional knowledge were included.

Some potential respondents could not be located or were unwilling to be interviewed. Some leaders were willing to be interviewed, but were not available during the time the research team was present in the area.

By the ‘growth machine’ the authors refer to the foundational work done by Molotch (1976) in describing the shape and environment of cities as being primarily the result of social actions between cohesive sets of elites. In terms of urban regime politics, the authors are referring to the idea that networks between elected officials and those who can influence their decisions occur through pre-existing political structures that can either encourage or discourage economic development (Levine & Ross, 2006).

Of note, the researchers were unable to interview a leader that would represent current Island fishing interests. Because of the decentralised, local, and artisanal structure of that sector it is difficult to identify fishing leaders and even more difficult to contact them. However, there was among the interviewees a former fisherman so that the perspective was represented in the results.

This is a qualitative study and its value does not depend on its representation and generalisation to all ecotourism leaders in Galapagos. The value of our interview data is more akin to the value of a focus group than to a random sample.

Structured components related to the special law or ecotourism policy in general. See Table 1 for a list outlining the legal origin of each policy included in the interview template.

The authors conducted an inter-coder reliability test, which yielded a 100% correlation between coders.

A vast majority of respondents believe some institutions may need to be completely redesigned, particularly the Institute for Galapagos (INGALA). INGALA was a national level agency that had regulated and monitored all federal immigration policy concerning the Islands. The primary criticisms of INGALA were its lack of enforcement and the politicisation of management decisions. For example one leader said ‘… we would do well to eliminate INGALA ….’ In fact, INGALA was in the process of being replaced by a successor agency called the CGG while the interviews were being conducted. It remains to be seen whether the CGG will come under as much criticism as INGALA did.

As previously noted, INGALA has been replaced by the Galapagos Council of Governments. However, the authors included INGALA in the fund allocation portion of the survey to see if espoused respondent distrust of the institution matched their willingness to ‘take action’ by decreasing funding.