News archive for 2010
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Galapagos News #30
The latest copy of Galapagos News is now available for download:
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A new decade
A new decade is well underway – so I thought it worth reviewing a few of the existing conservation programmes in the Galapagos, and some of what was achieved so far. It is easy to look at the problems and forget how much is being achieved. New Zealanders have played an important role in many of […]
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Quarantine
When I first visited the Galapagos at the beginning of the last decade, there was only a fledgling, relatively ineffective quarantine system. Since then they have become a core government function, built a public service agency (SESA) with purpose-built offices, and expanded from simple hand inspection to the use of x-rays. Although they still have […]
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Pest eradications
Ten years ago no-one in the Galapagos thought that major pest eradications were feasible. Today they can look back on the largest goat eradication in the world, eradication of several plant species (something many international commentators still say can’t be done), eradication of cats from Baltra, eradication of a fire ant population on Marchena, and […]
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Rare species management
The number and scale of rare species management programmes has increased over the last decade. The Charles Darwin Foundation has taken a lead role, but this is being increasingly “mainstreamed” into Ecuadorean institutions. Although Lonesome George still hasn’t quite managed to father a fertile egg, other captive breeding programmes have been highly successful. The focus […]
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Sustainable management of the population
The human population explosion has been the most worrying trend over the last 20 years. The special legislation supposedly restricted immigration, but it was only in the last year that INGALA (the agency responsible for immigration control) finally began to enforce these provisions. But progress was made in some areas to reduce the impact of […]
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Community Support
A problem that is created by immigration is the fact that most people are new to the islands, have never been into the national park (other than to walk through it to the beach) and are only there because they hope to get a good job to support their family. But there are very active […]
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Galapagos Revisited
Our Chairman, Julian Fitter, has recently returned from a trip to Galapagos. This is a report on his travels.