Galapagos removed from the Danger List
The World Heritage Committee has removed the Galapagos Islands from its “Red List”, the list of sites endangered by environmental threats and overuse.
The Islands were first put on the danger list in 2007 at the insistence of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Since the 1990s the Galapagos have fallen victim of a boom in population, fishing and even tourism which has placed ever increasing pressure on this fragile ecosystem. At first the government paid little heed to the growing threats to the archipelago but its placement on Unesco’s red list resounded like a wake up call in Quito.
The government went on to take a number of actions to reverse some of these threats. It started by evicting 5,000 people believed to be illegally living on the islands, and went on to enforce a tighter control on immigration and quarantine as well as implementing a US$15million fund to combat invasive speicies. The government has also increased regulation on tourism in an attempt to minimise the negative impacts of tourisms and maximise its positive impacts.
The World Heritage Committee voted to remove the Galapagos Islands from the danger list stating that the government has made considerable progress towards protecting the archipelago. The IUCN have recognised the considerable effort of the Ecuadorian government but recommended against the removal of the islands from the red lists arguing that there was still a lot of work to be done.
The Galapagos Conservation Trust also feel that it is a mistake to remove the Galapagos from the danger list and have stated that “Galapagos may no longer officially be a World Heritage Site In Danger, but its unique biodiversity is still very much at risk.”
Other sites on the danger list include the Belize Barrier Reef System, the Pantanal in Brazil, , Komodo National Park in Indonesia and Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda.
The 34th session of the World Heritage Committee is taking place in Brasilia from the 25th July to the 5th August.
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