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 and successful programmes to build public support for conservation – school visits, TV and radio programmes, community committees and programmes.
One example of how successful those programmes can be is the quarantine system. This is the conservation programme that has the greatest negative effect on ordinary residents – they can’t bring in those lovely fruit their aunty gave them when they went back to Guayaquil, or import a new fighting cock. But public awareness campaigns have built a very high, positive public profile for SICGAL, and a high tolerance for quarantine measures.